Hey guys. Just bought an 01 a4 quattro 1.8t 5 speed. Its got 120 miles on it. I just did the timing belt and water pump and track motor mounts. Everything else is stock. I drained and filled the transmission fluid because I was experiancing a slight notchyness in 2nd and 3rd and thought it might be the fluid. I put in motul 300 75w90 gear oil. Ever since then (2 or 3 weeks), 2nd and 3rd gear have gotten progressively worse. Now its to the point where I can hear the gears going in and making a faint grind. Sometimes it does it and sometimes it goes in smooth as butter. 1st, 4th and 5th are great and smooth. I don;t know what it could be. Its gotten somewhat colder in the past few weeks but the lowest its been is like 45 degrees. Before I did the flush, when the engine would warm up the notchyness would stop and all was fine, but after the flush it does it no matter what.

 

Synchros. The fluid change could've helped but I guess it didn't. My car will grind into second if its cold. Best option I can think of is buying a used tranny and replacing the synchros in it if you have the know how.

 

Well I did some thinking and am wondering if maybe the reason my 2nd and 3rd gear grind so bad is because when I drained out the old fluid, it was on a ramp and only 1.5 gts drained out and then I filled it back up with what the manual called for. Do you think an overfill of .5 to 1.0 qts could make this an issue? Its weird though because if I drive the car, it almost always grinds/notchy in 2nd and 3rd, BUT if I park it for 30 minutes and then go back out and drive it, it shifts perfect for a few minutes and then starts up again. You think the fluid could be getting airated and causing this hard shifts due to too much fluid?

 

Is there a way you could lift the car so it's level, and then open the fill hole? If there was any excess fluid it would drain out. After that it would be a simple matter of reinstalling the fill plug.

There is a good chance that overfilling could cause issues. If I may ask, were you following a particular procedure for this task? Usually one of the first things they say is to lift your car so it's level.

 

sorry. its not something simple. its your synchros. happens alot. mine arent the best especially while cold. you can either live with it or cost lots of money fixing it. fluid changes can help but when they wear out they just wear out