2012 S4 gearbox advice please
Discussion
Hi All
I hope no one minds me posting this outside of the B8 owners thread.
We've had a 2012 S4 avant for 9 years now and its currently sitting at 93k miles. Its been an amazing car with not a single thing having gone wrong in that time until now. Its mainly driven by my wife who apart from refusing to ever let it sit and warm up for a few seconds on start up (she is ALWAYS late for everything), drives it very sedately. Its got a Audi FSH and the gearbox fluids were done at 38k and 73k. I had it serviced last week and there were no fault codes. I debated getting the gearbox fluids done early but the Audi tech did not strongly recommend it and he did some kind of clutch relearning reset.
However over the last few months, Ive noticed a slight judder when going up and down between 1st and 2nd, particularly when slowing down. Yesterday when I engaged neutral immediately after start up, the car just wouldn't move- when I tried the gear again it did move but not happily. I also may be imagining it, but it seems to now hold very high gears eg if Im pottering along at 30mph it will be holding 5th gear at 1100 revs. In my ignorance it sounds like I've possibly got both clutch and mechatronic issues? The latter is to be expected I guess. The car is still driveable and mostly ok but I am assuming things are only going to get worse
Its our only car and a big bill now could not come at a worse time financially . I am wondering about best next steps.
One good thing is that i know a Audi master tech who will do private work at the weekends.
Id love to receive any advice re what order to best tackle this problem in:
- would you start with removing the mechatronic unit and having that rebuilt by someone like the company ECU Testing? (or an alternative co if someone knows of a better option). I think their rebuild service is in the region of £430 Plus VAT and carriage
- I believe having the clutch done would be a lot more expensive so perhaps that would be second?
Any advice re best next steps would be much appreciated. Thank you
I hope no one minds me posting this outside of the B8 owners thread.
We've had a 2012 S4 avant for 9 years now and its currently sitting at 93k miles. Its been an amazing car with not a single thing having gone wrong in that time until now. Its mainly driven by my wife who apart from refusing to ever let it sit and warm up for a few seconds on start up (she is ALWAYS late for everything), drives it very sedately. Its got a Audi FSH and the gearbox fluids were done at 38k and 73k. I had it serviced last week and there were no fault codes. I debated getting the gearbox fluids done early but the Audi tech did not strongly recommend it and he did some kind of clutch relearning reset.
However over the last few months, Ive noticed a slight judder when going up and down between 1st and 2nd, particularly when slowing down. Yesterday when I engaged neutral immediately after start up, the car just wouldn't move- when I tried the gear again it did move but not happily. I also may be imagining it, but it seems to now hold very high gears eg if Im pottering along at 30mph it will be holding 5th gear at 1100 revs. In my ignorance it sounds like I've possibly got both clutch and mechatronic issues? The latter is to be expected I guess. The car is still driveable and mostly ok but I am assuming things are only going to get worse
Its our only car and a big bill now could not come at a worse time financially . I am wondering about best next steps.
One good thing is that i know a Audi master tech who will do private work at the weekends.
Id love to receive any advice re what order to best tackle this problem in:
- would you start with removing the mechatronic unit and having that rebuilt by someone like the company ECU Testing? (or an alternative co if someone knows of a better option). I think their rebuild service is in the region of £430 Plus VAT and carriage
- I believe having the clutch done would be a lot more expensive so perhaps that would be second?
Any advice re best next steps would be much appreciated. Thank you
I might be completely off the mark but when I've read about dsg resets before, it basically resets it to default factory settings which are likely to include changing up gears at low speeds for optimum economy etc. It therefore needs to relearn you're driving style but I'm unsure how long that process takes, mileage wise.
Are you happy the last dsg oil change was done correctly and did they do the filter too?
Are you happy the last dsg oil change was done correctly and did they do the filter too?
This complaint:
Has a repair kit for the mechatronic: 0B5 398 048 C
Probably several hours labour to remove mechatronic, swap solenoids etc. TSB shows lots of criteria car must meet (hardware, software versions, faults etc.) to confirm it's eligible.
Abrupt 2-1 change has a software update.
Gearbox warning with these codes is also a software update:
Few others (all with associated codes/warnings) that vary in severity from replacing seals to whole new mechatronic.
This really wants a skilled diagnosis before barking up the wrong (expensive) tree.
Has a repair kit for the mechatronic: 0B5 398 048 C
Probably several hours labour to remove mechatronic, swap solenoids etc. TSB shows lots of criteria car must meet (hardware, software versions, faults etc.) to confirm it's eligible.
Abrupt 2-1 change has a software update.
Gearbox warning with these codes is also a software update:
Few others (all with associated codes/warnings) that vary in severity from replacing seals to whole new mechatronic.
This really wants a skilled diagnosis before barking up the wrong (expensive) tree.
Thanks very much both. Thats interesting as to why the car may now be holding higher gears post service
The last gearbox service was done by an Audi main dealer so hopefully yes! It was 20k miles ago and Id say the gearbox issues have only started in the last 2-3k miles.
My issues are pretty much as summarised in that complaint Dr G.
I spoke to MILTA yesterday and was quoted £3,300.00 exc VAT for a full gearbox recondition (he was a bit hard to understand but I believe thats clutch and either a reapired mechatronic or a reconditioned swap out) . Was also recommended to have the flywheel done at the same time at £580 plus VAT. He offered me a next day booking which Im trying not to read too much into.
Im currently waiting to discuss options with my friend who is an Audi master tech and who does private work.
The car meantime is generally behaving itself apart from the slight judder. I'm trying to be pro-active as its our only car and I dont want it to get stuck in gear in the middle of nowhere. However it may be that there is no rush at all at the moment? I'm just conscious that I dont want to make the repair bill anymore expensive through allowing the issue to worsen either (if that's a thing?)
Thanks again for the advice and input, its much appreciated.
The last gearbox service was done by an Audi main dealer so hopefully yes! It was 20k miles ago and Id say the gearbox issues have only started in the last 2-3k miles.
My issues are pretty much as summarised in that complaint Dr G.
I spoke to MILTA yesterday and was quoted £3,300.00 exc VAT for a full gearbox recondition (he was a bit hard to understand but I believe thats clutch and either a reapired mechatronic or a reconditioned swap out) . Was also recommended to have the flywheel done at the same time at £580 plus VAT. He offered me a next day booking which Im trying not to read too much into.
Im currently waiting to discuss options with my friend who is an Audi master tech and who does private work.
The car meantime is generally behaving itself apart from the slight judder. I'm trying to be pro-active as its our only car and I dont want it to get stuck in gear in the middle of nowhere. However it may be that there is no rush at all at the moment? I'm just conscious that I dont want to make the repair bill anymore expensive through allowing the issue to worsen either (if that's a thing?)
Thanks again for the advice and input, its much appreciated.
Learning after adaptations is only a few hundred miles so unlikely related.
Milta are very efficient; their guys have stuff on the bench and in pieces in impressively short order. Common stuff they have lots of exchange parts ready to go so labour is often as little as "remove and refit" as the tricky part is already done.
Used them probably half a dozen times over the years, and the only time they had the car for more than 48 hours was when someone managed to split their gearbox casing clean in half (and they had to source another).
Milta are very efficient; their guys have stuff on the bench and in pieces in impressively short order. Common stuff they have lots of exchange parts ready to go so labour is often as little as "remove and refit" as the tricky part is already done.
Used them probably half a dozen times over the years, and the only time they had the car for more than 48 hours was when someone managed to split their gearbox casing clean in half (and they had to source another).
Having paid over 3k to a local 'expert garage' which resulted in a 'working but still a bit dodgy' DSG box on my own car (mk7 Golf R) when the box started to give serious problems, I would recommend just taking it to an acknowledged expert even if it means driving/transporting the car across the country.
I'm now stuck driving the car until it breaks/becomes financially unviable to keep on the road as resale value is practically nothing because of the iffy box and I'm not going to hand out another 3k+ to try to get it fixed properly as the car is now so old. Once the car fails (likely will be the DSG as the rest of the car is still in surprisingly good shape) it'll be sold for scrap/parts.
I love the DSG to drive but would NEVER consider another one unless I had a full manufacturers warranty for the period I planned on owning the car. As VW will offer extended warranties to 5 years on new cars, I deduce that's around the max amount of time you should consider owning a car (from new) with a DSG box. My current box broke after around 6.5 years. I would have replaced it at the 6 year mark, which was the age when I replaced my previous car that had S-Tronic (same box, Audi branding) but that 6-year mark hit during COVID when cars got hard to find, so I kept it. Big mistake. Obviously, would not recommend buying a s/h car with DSG either unless it was less than 5 years old and you only planned to keep it til the 5 year old mark.
I'm now stuck driving the car until it breaks/becomes financially unviable to keep on the road as resale value is practically nothing because of the iffy box and I'm not going to hand out another 3k+ to try to get it fixed properly as the car is now so old. Once the car fails (likely will be the DSG as the rest of the car is still in surprisingly good shape) it'll be sold for scrap/parts.
I love the DSG to drive but would NEVER consider another one unless I had a full manufacturers warranty for the period I planned on owning the car. As VW will offer extended warranties to 5 years on new cars, I deduce that's around the max amount of time you should consider owning a car (from new) with a DSG box. My current box broke after around 6.5 years. I would have replaced it at the 6 year mark, which was the age when I replaced my previous car that had S-Tronic (same box, Audi branding) but that 6-year mark hit during COVID when cars got hard to find, so I kept it. Big mistake. Obviously, would not recommend buying a s/h car with DSG either unless it was less than 5 years old and you only planned to keep it til the 5 year old mark.
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