98 2.8QA -- last night some serious **** happened while on the way back from st louis with my girl and two buddies. lot of stop and go traffic through construction zones.. we stopped for gas just outside of chicago (willowbrook), started the car back up and was greeted by a god awful sound from the transmission. tried to pull out just for a test and RPMs shot up, spinning, could barely connect in 1st, the ECU wouldn't go to 2nd unless i tickled the throttle a bit. bad ****** news. i have no idea what happened, as it wasnt making any noise or acting any stranger than usual prior to restarting it.

not sure whats wrong.

stuck in chicago, i live in milwaukee, and i refuse to leave the car here and sell it for junk. the engine is strong, i just replaced the entire front suspension and i ******* love the thing..

going to see if i can get it towed up to milwaukee today

any advice from you guys?

EDIT: the PRD432 dash display is NOT lit up in red and there is no CEL
am i missing something

 

Outta curiosity, how long have u owned the car?
Some crooked *** people take out the gauge cluster and tape over or remove those lights sometime. However if uve owned and driven the car for a good amount of time that's most likely not the case.

 

i meant that the red blocked cluster isnt lit - the one that shows up when the tranny is gone or broken. also surprised that no codes were thrown when something is obviously not right

 

just got some codes from a local guy found through vagtoolfinder

in regards to the transmission we found this:

5 Faults Found:
00268 - Solenoid Valve 6 (N93)
31-10 - Open or Short to Ground - Intermittent
00266 - Solenoid Valve 5 (N92)
31-10 - Open or Short to Ground - Intermittent
00270 - Solenoid Valve 7 (N94)
31-10 - Open or Short to Ground - Intermittent
00264 - Solenoid Valve 4 (N91)
31-10 - Open or Short to Ground - Intermittent
18265 - Load Signal: Error Message from ECU
P1857 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent

googling my *** off right now
if you guys have any ideas please let me know..
until then i'll be pushing my car back and forth because of local off-street parking

 

Any Chicago peeps with a AAA Plus towing plan that could help this bro? Looks to me like the tow would be right at the 100 mile limit . . .

 

video of the sound/s

http://wednesdaysound.com/IMG_0496.MOV

 

It has to be an issue with the transmission connector that goes into the valve body to operate the solenoid valves (they are in the valve body and theres 7 of them (at least in a 96 A4). 4 solenoid valves would not go bad simoultaneously, and the TCU is talking to the VAG COM reader so it should be good. Each solenoid has its own feeder wire from the TCU and has a pair of return wires (ground) to the TCU.Was it raining, did you drive thru a huge puddle or anything like that? Might try to disconnect and spray some electric contact cleaner into the 14 pin connector down by the transmission and put some dielectric grease into it then plug it back together.

 

it rained on the way down to st louis (~400 miles from here), very very hard overnight, but started and ran fine all afternoon until the stop in the evening. now that i think about it i did, however, notice a bit of smoke on the slowdown but just attributed it to my already leaking CTS and coolant on a hot exhaust. i suppose it could've also been smoke from the transmission area.

ill do my best to get under the car and find my way around to this connector you're talkng about. thanks a lot for the reply

**also the grinding noise heard in my video changes in pitch based on the RPMs

 

Also check the passenger side floor for water or dampness, thats where the TCU is, so the bad connection could be there as well. If you have a sunroof and the drains get plugged the water seems to end up in the compartment where the TCU lives. I don't know which solenoid is energized for each gear, so the grinding could be being caused by one of the other 3 solenoids energizing, but it needs one of the dead ones to completely get into first gear, or reverse so its only partially engaging some of the clutches or bands.

Heres a PDF on some troubleshooting info for auto transmissions, its from a training course on transmissions:

http://avtopedia.ru/akpp/audi_o1v_o1vl.pdf

Those four solenoids that are open circuited are the pressure control solenoids, you need 91 and 93 to be energized for reverse, neutral and 1st gear, you need 91,92, and 93 for 2nd, 91, and 92 for 3rd and 5th, 91 for 4th and 94 for the lockup torque converter. These work with the other three solenoids, N88, N89, and N90 to actually engage the proper gear.

This one is for a 2 wheel drive tranny but should be the same troubleshooting info for the solenoids.

http://avtopedia.ru/akpp/audi_a6_1998/123.pdf

 

any ideas about the noise?

this sounds similar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKzGJsbMc_w

thanks again for the help.. still trying to sort this out