Gearbox - limp home mode grrrrrr

[sarg]

Originally Posted by johnny_quattro

Prices ranged from £1720 to £2300-£2500 for a full recon. This is really the same price that I paid for the car originally so I am now seriously considering buying a replacement car. The guarantee/warranty offered to me was 12,000 miles or 12 months, which doesn't really compare to the 100,000 mile warranty I read somewhere else on these forums.

This is what I did when mine went, and have regretted that choice ever since, if I had the same opportunity again I'd definitely spend the money on a gearbox rebuild.

I bought another car, which also had its problems, so the inconvenience and expense wasn't spared. I paid about 8.5k for a replacement, then spent about 1500 bringing the condition up to my expectations, then lost 3.5 on its disposal a year later.

If I'd have just spent 2.5k on my gearbox, I'd have avoided all of that, had a car that I preferred, and one with an as-good-as-new gearbox. Everything else was in decent order - sure something else might have gone wrong, they are old cars now, but it would still have been cheaper, in the long run, than replacing it.

[David's8]

Have a look under the transmission section (where this thread should be?)stickies and there is a list of ZF service centres possibly nearer to you.

[johnny_quattro]

Sorry if I posted in the wrong section; hopefully I can plead ignorance and say that I didn't see the separate transmission section on the forum. The tears of emotion clouded my judgement and vision at the same time :-)

Your suggestion (sarg) is a valid and constructive one. I will look again at the possibility of a recon. I just saw an X reg FL on autotrader going for a tidy sum, only to be told on the telephone that the gearbox on that car was in limp-home mode. Oh, the irony.

I am now going to browse through the ZF list as suggested by David's8 and see what happens over the next few days. Something tells me I will need to speak to my bank. Having said that, the A8L is off the road so I'm saving a fortune in petrol lolz

Cheers people for all your helpful input.

[Adrian E]

It's going to be an issue with any d2 unless there's history of gearbox oil changes or a complete gearbox replacement someone else has paid for - they do crop up but it's often not mentioned in adverts in any case

Other option is to put money into a d3 which doesn't seem to suffer the same box issues being the later 6 speed. Still worth oil change but also requires care making sure the oil going in is the same as what came out (there was a tsb where different oil was recommended for a particular fault but you have to recode the gearbox or it screws it up!)

[M-A8]

There it is mate, zf centres and otherbinfo about d2 gearboxes in transmission section for d2 platform

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=24

[tintin]

I'd mainly echo what Sarg and others have said on here about weighting up the cost vs the alternative. It is a lot of dosh, but a relatively good investment, if you're that taken with the car, and aim(ed) to keep if for a longish while.

You may have found the other threads on this already, but here's the one I started when my 'box went just over a year ago -

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5719

there's loads of helpful information on this thread, so well worth a browse, if you've not found it already. It certainly helped me make the decision on a rebuild, which I've not regretted.

[johnny_quattro]

To my surprise, there's a ZF agent a few miles away from me based in Croydon. I've just had an informative chat with someone on the telephone who gave me a price excluding VAT of £2225 (£2670 incl. VAT).

Price quoted was a full recon to ZF standards. I'm seriously considering it even though my bank manager isn't.

[M-A8]

Originally Posted by johnny_quattro

To my surprise, there's a ZF agent a few miles away from me based in Croydon. I've just had an informative chat with someone on the telephone who gave me a price excluding VAT of £2225 (£2670 incl. VAT).

Price quoted was a full recon to ZF standards. I'm seriously considering it even though my bank manager isn't.

Oh s**t mate, so a full recon then !!! So sorry mate.

That is a lot of money !!!

But, we still love our cars

Give this guys a call, they are based in Harrow, London.

http://www.audivwsc.co.uk/

You never know, but they have a specialist company just for the gearboxes and they are absolutely in my opinion best or one of the best guys in London.

I've seen many gearboxes refurbished and repaired by them, from dsg to mutlitronic

[tintin]

Originally Posted by johnny_quattro

To my surprise, there's a ZF agent a few miles away from me based in Croydon. I've just had an informative chat with someone on the telephone who gave me a price excluding VAT of £2225 (£2670 incl. VAT).

Price quoted was a full recon to ZF standards. I'm seriously considering it even though my bank manager isn't.

That's comparable with/a bit cheaper than Mackies, and probably a bit dearer than Chester from memory. It's a big chunk of money, especially compared to the book value of these cars, but worth spending if you are either:

A) going to keep it or
B) looking to invest similar money (more?) in a comparable alternative.

The general experience on here is that this is the single biggest cost of running D2's (unless you do high annual mileage….), followed by cam belt replacement, but if you fall into category (A), then you'll realistically only need to do it once. Then it's just a simple matter of finding the cash…

If you do decide to go with the ZF guys in Croydon, let me know, and I'll happily provide you with the detail of what Mackies did, so you've got an "apples to apples" comparison, and can get the best out of the local ZF guys.

[johnny_quattro]

Hello Tintin, thanks for your response. I'm trying desperately to cobble the money together to go for the full recon. experience with the ZF main agent in Croydon.

You said that you'd be able to supply some details of what Mackies did so I'd like to take you up on your offer, if you'd be so kind.

Thanks to everyone else who have contributed to this thread, which has in some way persuaded me of the benefits of getting the gearbox repaired instead of going via the 'buy a replacement car' option.