hard to select 2nd gear x crunching

[Brookie-Rs4]

Hi all

well took my car into hudds audi on mon with a few faults.
one of my problems is hard to select 1st to 2nd harder when cold.
and notchy going into 2nd even when warm.

had a call today to say they put a new pipe on slave cyl as per audi.uk

now they are taking the box out as it hasnt fixed the problem..
so see what they do, strip the box or fit a new one?

also would like to see if they put a new clutch in ?

[ADR14N]

Had the same problem, my car is in Audi Watford. When the car was cold it was very difficult to select 1st, once the oil reached 85 degress it was fine. First Audi Watford replaced the gear linkage (modified version). Now they are replacing the clutch and fly wheel. Hope to get car back today. Will let you know how it is.

[sonny]

Iv always had a slight problem engaging gears when the weather is cold, something that iv accepted really, how ever on a 55k car, it should not happen IMO..strange that they upgraded the linkage...does it feel better?

[PetrolDave]

how ever on a 55k car, it should not happen IMO

The (very thick anyway) gearbox oil gets even thicker at low temperatures, so you're trying to make the gears engage while they are in something of the consistency of treacle. The cost of the car doesn't change the basic physics of the situation.

[sonny]

how ever on a 55k car, it should not happen IMO

The (very thick anyway) gearbox oil gets even thicker at low temperatures, so you're trying to make the gears engage while they are in something of the consistency of treacle. The cost of the car doesn't change the basic physics of the situation.

Then they shoud have made it to accept a thinner transmission oil, I have had other cars that and cheaper ones that do not suffer from the same problems! I read somewhere that if you run with out the TC on, its solves the problem!...not sure how true this is!

[PetrolDave]

Then they shoud have made it to accept a thinner transmission oil, I have had other cars that and cheaper ones that do not suffer from the same problems!

Do those cars have the same power and torque output as the RS4???

Oil films have a limit to the load they can carry before breaking down and no longer lubricating the moving parts. Yes Audi could have used thinner oil, but the transmission would have worn rapidly ... and I think Audi would get more complaints about a several £k bill for a new gearbox than they will get for difficult to engage gears when cold.

[sonny]

Ok fair one...I totaly agree with you!

[PetrolDave]

I read somewhere that if you run with out the TC on, its solves the problem!...not sure how true this is!

There's a thread on AudiZine that claims if you turn the TC off then gear changes are smoother (but no easier to engage) because the TC/ESP does not intervene.

[sonny]

I read somewhere that if you run with out the TC on, its solves the problem!...not sure how true this is!

There's a thread on AudiZine that claims if you turn the TC off then gear changes are smoother (but no easier to engage) because the TC/ESP does not intervene.

Stupid question, why is that? Is it just unique to the Quattro system?

[PetrolDave]

Stupid question, why is that? Is it just unique to the Quattro system?

I haven't seen a totally convincing reason given, but one theory says that the TC sees the sudden change in acceleration when you change gear and interprets this as loss of traction so it tells the engine ECU to cut the power, so when you have completed the gear change the engine has to recover from that unnecessary request - which takes time.

So it's not quattro related - just caused by the ability of our cars to accelerate rapidly and the TC not having been calibrated properly to cope with that. It's likely that most of the development was done with TC off and that TC calibration was maybe not given the time necessary to completely fine tune it.

[lengster1]

This sounds all too familiar to the b5 dont you think?

[Golich]

Mine suffers exactly the same. I have had a somewhat random - well more often than not baulky 2nd gear on my car from the second day of brand new ownership. That's 18months now and 19K miles hasn't got any better or worse. Sometimes you can feel/hear a very minor crunch. It is quite subtle but no other gear does it and it annoys me from time to time. The odd or even good thing is it never does it if you are REALLY going from 1st to 2nd only when driving very sedately.

I have reported to the Stealer twice now. They are looking to do a comparisson with another car to see if it does it too. That being the case, they might put it down to the not unsual characteristics of Audi gearboxes. Which I know from B5 S4 and RS4 ownership it would seem Audi really struggle to produce a decent changing gearbox in every gear. That said not every car does it. Brooners doesn't.

[tweek]

I think this traction control 'alleged' improvement is a bit of a red herring. How does loss of traction equate to sudden change in acceleration? maybe engine speed, I know my car has sensor on the clutch pedal so the ECU would detect the gearchange (pushing the clutch with cruise on cancels the cruise).

Gear selection problems are usually caused due to a) knackered synchro's b) clutch drag or c) gearbox oil, you may see some improvement when changing gear at different engine speeds. As the oil warms up it will thin out a little (lower viscosity), the oil in the gearbox is constantly being ripped apart in the gears and this will over time lower the viscosity of the oil. The oil is used to speed match the synchro's between the two gears and the oil viscosity along with synchro wear determines how well this happens, if you change too quickly the speeds won't match and you'll crunch the gears. This is why it can be okay on a slow change but crunches when changed faster, also explains why garages always change the gearbox oil first.

[Lancia]

Had my syncros done under warranty. Then again still a problem and finnally got someone at the dealership who was very good. Supposedly there are adjustments under the ash tray and he did all that and everything was good.

[ghoonk]

What adjustments? You could be on to something here