Hi all,

I'm hoping you'll may have some suggestions for me.

I have a 1.8T 20V Octavia, currently 6 years old and doing approx 170000 KM with some severe tranny issues.

The first problem that I got was violent engaging of the gears, first gear being the most violent. This was accompanied by some hesitation going from Neutral into first gear.

Solution: Full tranny overhaul, or so I thought.

After doing a full transmission overhaul in May 2010, changing the clutches, valves, seals, etc, (an external oil cooler was also added at this point), the car worked fine until March-April 2011.

Now I'm getting some slight hesitation at gear changes, characterized by a pause in power delivery. This is most noticeable going from 2nd to 3rd, but happens at all gear changes. Also, the shift from Neutral into Drive is quite harsh. The local dealer has scanned the car but could not find any error codes in the system. They recommended another specialist to service the transmission, and he changed solenoids - no change, swapped the valve body - no change, scrapped the entire transmission and discovered burnt clutch rings on the third gear which he replaced - no change. So after all this work and a lot of money spent there has been minor improvement in the responsiveness of the transmission, but the problems I just mentioned are still around as well.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions to offer, cause I'm out of ideas on my own.

Hi, it may be worth checking the ribbon which goes from the control unit to the solenoids. It deteriorates over time and shouldn't be too costly.

I believe this is where the ribbon is located but I'm speaking under correction. This ribbon may be the cause of the other problems because the signals/instructions may not be sent properly

Cheers, Peter

Thanks for the suggestion Peter, I'll have the technicians look into it and post the outcome.