The Audi Thread

Crowley said:
Last week Monday I was doing some last minute shopping before my trip down to Durban and in heavy traffic my A7 gave a "Reduce oil level" error. Thought I would get the shopping done and then swing past Audi to do it for me. All of a sudden the gearbox made a weird gear change and then a "Gearbox malfunction: No reverse gear" message popped up. I could still drive but the gearbox revved high in first and skipped second gear completely. Went to Audi who reduced the oil level first, reset the error warnings and then ran the diagnostics again and as I feared it came up with a mechatronic issue.

Quote from Audi for the mechatronics parts only is R76 570.00.

Morne from Audi East Rand came and spoke to me about the issue and said he would get hold of Audi SA and see if they would cover it as the Freeway plan only ran out 5k km's ago. He also arranged a A3 for me to go on holiday with which I doubt any other car manufacturer would do. Yesterday he let me know that Audi SA would cover most of the costs and I would only be liable for 16k which is not small change but much better than 76k + labor.
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Was it serviced recently?
 
wingnut771 said:
Was it serviced recently?
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It's been serviced on time, every time at Audi.

I could have probably gotten it repaired somewhere else for much less but I am planning on upgrading in the not too distant future and when it comes down to selling I think having a record of everything that was done at Audi will be worth it. Full service history at the dealers was one of the things I looked for when I bought the car.
 
Crowley said:
It's been serviced on time, every time at Audi.

I could have probably gotten it repaired somewhere else for much less but I am planning on upgrading in the not too distant future and when it comes down to selling I think having a record of everything that was done at Audi will be worth it. Full service history at the dealers was one of the things I looked for when I bought the car.
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The point I was getting at is sometimes the the agents ****up. I had my mechtronics fail after a normal gearbox service at the agents before. I obviously couldn't prove it was that but anyway...
 
What commonly causes the mechatronics to fail in the S-tronic cars? Solenoids? Sensors?
 
Crowley said:
Last week Monday I was doing some last minute shopping before my trip down to Durban and in heavy traffic my A7 gave a "Reduce oil level" error. Thought I would get the shopping done and then swing past Audi to do it for me. All of a sudden the gearbox made a weird gear change and then a "Gearbox malfunction: No reverse gear" message popped up. I could still drive but the gearbox revved high in first and skipped second gear completely. Went to Audi who reduced the oil level first, reset the error warnings and then ran the diagnostics again and as I feared it came up with a mechatronic issue.

Quote from Audi for the mechatronics parts only is R76 570.00.

Morne from Audi East Rand came and spoke to me about the issue and said he would get hold of Audi SA and see if they would cover it as the Freeway plan only ran out 5k km's ago. He also arranged a A3 for me to go on holiday with which I doubt any other car manufacturer would do. Yesterday he let me know that Audi SA would cover most of the costs and I would only be liable for 16k which is not small change but much better than 76k + labor.
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I can refer you to an excellent independent VAG specialist in the East Rand if you don't come right or want a second opinion.
 
PhireSide said:
What commonly causes the mechatronics to fail in the S-tronic cars? Solenoids? Sensors?
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Not sure, if I had to guess, the solenoids, as that is a moving part? I've had 7 DSG/S-tronics. Only had 1 fail. I also believe they fail because the agent doesn't open up the pan and replace the internal filter when doing a service.
 
wingnut771 said:
Not sure, if I had to guess, the solenoids, as that is a moving part? I've had 7 DSG/S-tronics. Only had 1 fail. I also believe they fail because the agent doesn't open up the pan and replace the internal filter when doing a service.
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If that's so, I wonder how feasible it would be to replace the solenoids like in a regular slushbox transmission? I know it's a common maintenance item (along with the filters and the wiring harness) on some traditional automatic gearboxes with torque converters.
 
wingnut771 said:
Not sure, if I had to guess, the solenoids, as that is a moving part? I've had 7 DSG/S-tronics. Only had 1 fail. I also believe they fail because the agent doesn't open up the pan and replace the internal filter when doing a service.
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This is 100% true 99% of failures are due to not changing oil and filters on time.
 
PhireSide said:
If that's so, I wonder how feasible it would be to replace the solenoids like in a regular slushbox transmission? I know it's a common maintenance item (along with the filters and the wiring harness) on some traditional automatic gearboxes with torque converters.
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I changed solenoids on my Fiesta Powershift, it was easy on that ,there were only 2, I got them for R4000 but you can get them as cheap as R2000.00 each.
 
PhireSide said:
If that's so, I wonder how feasible it would be to replace the solenoids like in a regular slushbox transmission? I know it's a common maintenance item (along with the filters and the wiring harness) on some traditional automatic gearboxes with torque converters.
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You won't find an OEM dealer replacing solenoids, they barely do any work on gearboxes from my experience, the work will be outsourced to independent gearbox specialists.
 
wingnut771 said:
The point I was getting at is sometimes the the agents ****up. I had my mechtronics fail after a normal gearbox service at the agents before. I obviously couldn't prove it was that but anyway...
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Fair enough.

On that, the A3 sedan they gave me was actually not too bad. Consumption was slightly better than on the A7, it handled the hills with ease and it was much easier to park. I did miss the power while overtaking and driving a smaller car did take some time to get used to.
 
PhireSide said:
If that's so, I wonder how feasible it would be to replace the solenoids like in a regular slushbox transmission? I know it's a common maintenance item (along with the filters and the wiring harness) on some traditional automatic gearboxes with torque converters.
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I don't know, I would expect maybe the mechatronics to have a refurb once in its life, but hopefully regular oil and filter changes prevents this. I'm on 225k mileage and still no issues yet.
 
Crowley said:
Fair enough.

On that, the A3 sedan they gave me was actually not too bad. Consumption was slightly better than on the A7, it handled the hills with ease and it was much easier to park. I did miss the power while overtaking and driving a smaller car did take some time to get used to.
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Could you feel the difference between a wet and dry clutch pack?
 
Nithan15 said:
I changed solenoids on my Fiesta Powershift, it was easy on that ,there were only 2, I got them for R4000 but you can get them as cheap as R2000.00 each.
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Are all solenoids equal? I worry about doing the whole refurb thing and the replacement parts last a third of the time the original ones did?
 
wingnut771 said:
Not sure, if I had to guess, the solenoids, as that is a moving part? I've had 7 DSG/S-tronics. Only had 1 fail. I also believe they fail because the agent doesn't open up the pan and replace the internal filter when doing a service.
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I am due for a service on my transmission as well, and will be doing both internal and external filters. Filters with fluid should be around R2300 or so, which is cheap insurance for these gearboxes. Bearing in mind I have the Crappy Valueless Transmission version (Multitronic) so I don't think it's long for this world anyway, but if when it goes, I am going to attempt a Tiptronic conversion on it from a Quattro model.

The filters on the DSG transmissions are even cheaper, I think around R300 for the kit the last time I checked? Probably a bit more at the agents. And then some more dosh for the fluid, but it's definitely recommended to keep on top of maintenance with these units.
 
PhireSide said:
I am due for a service on my transmission as well, and will be doing both internal and external filters. Filters with fluid should be around R2300 or so, which is cheap insurance for these gearboxes. Bearing in mind I have the Crappy Valueless Transmission version (Multitronic) so I don't think it's long for this world anyway, but if when it goes, I am going to attempt a Tiptronic conversion on it from a Quattro model.

The filters on the DSG transmissions are even cheaper, I think around R300 for the kit the last time I checked? Probably a bit more at the agents. And then some more dosh for the fluid, but it's definitely recommended to keep on top of maintenance with these units.
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If it's multitronic CVT then I would do oil and filter changes every 30k (half the recommended interval) as dirty oil kills the belt afaik and I feel the normal interval is too long for these boxes which is why they don't last imho.

I always get the stuff from the agents when doing servicing.
 
wingnut771 said:
If it's multitronic CVT then I would do oil and filter changes every 30k (half the recommended interval) as dirty oil kills the belt afaik and I feel the normal interval is too long for these boxes which is why they don't last imho.

I always get the stuff from the agents when doing servicing.
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Ja, and I think the guy never did changes on this box to start off with, so a filter and fluid change is going to be done as soon as I get the car back.

I do around 7500km per year so I think that every 4 or so years should be enough, it's not a huge job anyway.
 
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