Smell of hot clutch fluid getting out of an underground car park, and then car not going above fourth gear....... anything I can do myself to check transmission fluid or anything else? In Spain, and seemingly in trouble. We've been over a month away, so any breakdown cover no longer valid? Does it have to go to a VAG dealer?

Presuming you have the DQ200 seven speed dry clutch DSG, this doesn’t sound good I’m sorry to say.

Impossible to diagnose on a car forum, but it sounds to me like a mechatronic issue, or the accumulator failure (cracked casting) that’s quite common on the DQ200’s from this era.

Better to take to a DSG knowledgeable workshop IMO, but a VAG dealer if needs must.

No signs of leaking transmission fluid? Just to cover the simple stuff.

Sorry to hear of your predicament - good luck with getting it fixed.

Gaz

Cheers Gaz.

I was fearing the worst, too. I was bit shocked to find you couldn't just check the dipstick and top fluid up! I'm way behind the tech times.

But I'm pleased to say it may be alright after all, at least enough to get me the 300 or so miles to the ferry and home.

I left it overnight to cool down totally, and then started it and drove gently on as level roads as I could find in A Coruna. The transmission was a bit clunky at the very beginning, then started behaving normally, including getting into fifth smoothly.

I think it was a combination of some ultra-steep underground car park slopes in hot weather, the after effects of a fair bit of mountain driving, and (classic me....) the fact that for the first time in 50k miles with me the transmission had somehow been knocked into sporty mode.

So fingers crossed we should be able to get home and get any fault code/s analysed.

After the water leak last month (which turned out to be a leak in the pump, not just the thermostat housing), I was convinced I'd held onto this car too long - but I'm hoping it will go for another good few thousand miles yet.