Transmission thump/shunt
 

Rather worringly, I had a fairly serious sounding thump from the transmission this evening in my (D2) S8 - this happened first when travelling, when I moved the selector into S to get past some slower vehicles, and since then it's happened three or four times when pulling off from stationary. I've not had any previous transmission/gearbox shunting/thumping issues, and not done anything major to the car recently (other than changing to winter tyres :-()

It's sufficiently serious that I'm a bit concerned to pull off in it again at all at the moment :( - any thoughts, both on cause and how to deal with it? I don't have a Vagcom.

Vagcom will tell you very little as the gearboxes are hugely mechanical with little intelligence inside the box itself.

If it were me, living where you are, I'd be heading to Chester Tranmissions for their opinion on it as they're a ZF shop that seemed to know their stuff.....

Thats where my gearbox was rebuilt!

Sorry to say it sound like same symptoms mine had, box went into limp mode and wouldn't engage 1st or 2nd gear within 20 miles of first symptoms

Fair point, and I think you're probably right Ian - either that or take the chance of driving up to Glasgow to get Mackie's look at it, and have the gearbox flushed at the same time, if that makes sense.

I might leave it for a few days, and renew my RAC membership first tho'...

I think Chester autos have the machine that can do a complete flush of your transmission even the Torque Converter. Something you cant do with just a drain!

for TECH-TRONIX ATS300 read "Sucky Pumpy Squirty Thingumajig machine" :D

Think I'm heading that way as well, unfortunately - been there today, Herman (for that's his name...), had his box sucked clean of old gunky gearbox oil, and replaced with clean stuff. I wasn't encouraged when Graham from Chester Transmissions said that there was a "fair bit of metal in the tray" when it was drained :(
Anyway, I drove off, and within a few miles it was still exhibiting the same shunt (occasionally) from 1st to 2nd - whilst feeling smoother in the higher gears ??

All fine on the 25 mile motorway drive, so I decided to take it into the centre of Manchester, to test it a bit more - the long and the short of this being that it's displaying similar symptoms to those that Sarg quoted - i.e. struggling in 1st and 2nd. Felt just like my old Toyota Corolla (don't ask...:o) when it had a slipping clutch - i.e. over revving with no take up under any load.
This got progressively worse on the 7 or 8 mile return home from Manchester, with the dreaded PNRDS Christmas lights display finally coming on 1/2 mile from (limping) home.

Spoke to Graham on the 'phone, and it looks like I'll be taking it back for the same rebuild work that Amanda had done - assuming this is feasible. I just need to decide whether to drive it there, or get the RAC to take it to Chester for me. As ever, any opinions and comments very welcome.

PS - I'm conscious that there are a number of recent new forum members/8 owners, and that this may sound like an A/S8 reliability/expensive ownership horror story, so I'd like to add that I've had this car for nearly 5 years and 90k miles of trouble-free ownership, so I was probably due a big bill by now...:-(

I know your pain Stephen, sorry to hear that :(
Hope you get it solved/sorted soon, its a cracking car