Hi!

I have a problem with my gearbox that started this winter. The problem first showed up on a cold morning, about -8 degrees and the symptoms where that the car drove away fine but when it changed from 1st to 2nd gear it dropped out of gear and the engine reved freely. After a coupe of seconds it found a gear again. The problem quickly went away after about 500m.

First it was related to it being really cold but now the problem is there even if its a couple of degrees above 0.

I tried changing oil in the gearbox. The old oil looked quite ok and the oil change didnt affect the problem at all. I get no fault codes when this happens.

The stuttering fault that seems common is probably not related, that seems to get worse when the engine is hot. In my case the car runs perfectly fine when hot.

Any idea where to start troubleshooting?

Did you do a proper full flush or just change 3 litres

I just changed 3 litres.

Is it hard to do a full flush? I guess it requires a pump of some sort to do it?

You can do it with serial dilution (removing and replacing 3L of ATF, then mixing it all up by running the autobox, then repeat) but you'll need 15L of ATF to remove 94% of the old ATF.

You can also flush using the by turning the engine on, running the old ATF out and at the same time pouring new ATF in - needs two people really. This what Im doing later this year.

Both methods described in this forum. Jules

To do a full DIY flush try the modified Gibbons method. I call it modified because the lower pipe on the auto box, the pipe from the auto fluid cooler is taken off the box rather than the top of that pipe at the cooler.

You need two people one to turn the engine on to start the fluid flow and off when the pipe empties The other person holds the fluid pipe in the oil pan and shouts the order. I first empty the existing 3 to 4 litres of fluid in the auto box sump via the pipe.

I find a further 4 flushes filling the box up with 3 litres each time is sufficient. You may get away with using 3 flushes depending on the fluid colour as it comes out. When you are happy with the colour put 3 litres in and do the auto fluid level check by the book.

Just two further points, get yourself a replacement O ring for the pipe connection and don't overtighten the torx bolt holding the pipe to the auto box, the correct torque is only 7 ftlb