You guys might recall the thread I posted a few weeks ago about my car shuddering and not wanting to move. I was going to get a tow but two reasons steered me out of going that direction. 1) I went back and drove it home from where it was, it drove fine. 2) I was on vacation until last night, so I didnt want it sitting at the shop this whole time.

Anyways, I drove it last night to a buddys place about 40mi away because he has a lift, it drove absolutely fine. We put it up on the lift and changed out the diff fluid (dont worry, I got the limited slip additive) - it needed to be done anyways and we thought this might help. Didn't fix it.

Semi-good news is it doesnt shudder anymore and not want to move. But in 1st gear (A4) around 6-10mph it makes a "whooooooosh" noise but as soon as I let off the gas, its gone most of the time. Only in 1st gear though, as soon as it shifts to 2nd - its gone. If I keep the selector in 1st, you can hear it real good...I will try to get a vid later today.

Also in reverse, it sounds like there is something dragging underneath the car at about 4-5mph and on. Any ideas as to what that is?

I'm thinking exhaust leak maybe? But the guy I was working with said it could be something with the air return pipe in the cats if it has it? I have no clue what that means and no clue if the C5 uses that.

I know this place isnt for diagnosing because its over the computer but let me know what you guys think. Thanks!

 

Impossible to tell with the info provided (vid would be nice), first thing I'd do is change out the tranny fluid/filter. That might help the problem, and even if not it might help your diagnosis. If the fluid is burnt then at least you have an idea that you're getting excessive slippage/heat in your tranny.

I'm guessing this is a likely scenario since the car doesn't do it all the time, and letting it sit helped it. Maybe it's slipping and the hotter it gets, the worse the problem gets. When it cools down a bit it acts nicer.

I'd say if a fluid change doesn't help you're probably looking at a rebuild (do a stall at the same time, IMO - or even better, a M6 swap).

Dope

 

BTW, for future reference, I probably would have posted this is C5 Tech. That's more of a well, tech forum. This forum is typically "what do you think of my new stickers/wax/wheels/etc?" versus actual technical discussion. You might get better response there.

Dope

 

Don't know where you're located, but if you need a new diff you're going to want to contact Rick@rkt6. Had him build my diff for me, drove down and he swapped it all out for me. Great guy and knows these cars inside and out.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/memb...ick-rkt56.html

He'll hook you up with a great price!

 

Thats what I would be going for....waiting for RPM to email me back on some figures....

And I thought I posted this in the tech forum. That explains why when I tried to find it in the tech section I couldnt until I did a search haha. Hopefully a mod will move this....

Will do...but dont think its the diff. Leaning toward more of a transmission issue...

 

Lucky for you, he does transmissions too!!! Either way, good luck with your issue, hope it gets resolved quickly, and very inexpensively

His website is rkt56.com

 

Man keep the a4 in it sounds like your trans is going the hotter it gets if going bad the worse it will do. About 125.00 max for someone to do a fuild chg with filter do it. Love my a4 trans but may be getting lazy in the old age also.... Robert

 

hahaha
decisions....decisions. Theres nothing like rowing the gears though....if I need a rebuild I would definatley do RPM Stage V or something along those lines but the manual tranny swap (MN12 Z06 tranny) is only a tad bit more, or so I am told.

I had a fluid/filter change at about 45k or so. Might have to do it again....

And how hot should these trannys get? One day when it was 67F out my tranny temp was 180F. It seems like thats high though...the kicker is that I was pretty much babying it, I didnt do any WOT pulls or anything

 

180 degrees doesnt seem high at all for a tranny.

 

But that was without even getting on it. I was cruising at about 45-50 maybe, no downshifts nothing. I thought I read somewhere that a rule of thumb is that if it gets 100 degrees above the ambient temp, your in trouble...

 

I was getting some weird noises from mine as well and couldn't diagnose it. I took it to the dealer for a transmission service (auto) and asked them if they could pinpoint the problem. It was a very loose belt, when in gear, that was rubbing on the water pump. I had just recently had my water pump replaced and they didn't torque the tensioner properly. I have a katech manual tensioner. Mine wouldn't make the noise in park or neutral but sounded horrible in gear. Sound was so bad that the guys swapping out my wheels called me to say "fyi your car sounds like a$$ and it wasn't us" lol

 

I believe you generally want to keep the tranny temps under 200 or so. Once I added a stall in my old A4 Camaro (back in 2000) I had to add a cooler to keep the temps down. When I added the cooler I added a gauge too, and 160-180 range was pretty typical no matter how gently I was driving.

Dope

 

Put a cooler on it and get the fluid out of the radiator from those temp. And problem for sure will go away. Man I love the auto in these cars. More so after getting RPM to do there work on it...