At wit's end - please help

I've just about had it with this bloody 09A and trying to find someone who'll work on it.

Everyone in Metro Vancouver wants to replace the whole Valve Body and last week I drove down to Seattle only to be told its "undriveable" and will require a whole new transmission. So undriveable I got from Vancouver to Seattle and back without issue....

Does anyone here know of a shop or individual that will, without question or trying to upsell me a#(@$ing transmission, change out the solenoids in the Pacific Northwest? Willing to drive down to Portland, up to Kamloops/Kelowna, or over to Victoria - I just need this done!

With thanks,

Nicholas

There’s an auto trans shop in Portland.
Besides that there’s a full service biodiesel station in the SE if I remember correctly, and down the road I had my auto benz transmission rebuilt there, good as new. I don’t remember the name of the place but it was independent, just check around

Call Rich at Fix Um Haus in Portland. If he can't help you he'll steer you to someone who can. Tell him Peter from IDParts sent you.

The truth is: nobody "works" on [automatic] transmissions anymore. It's always throw a new (aka: remanufactured) one in.
Nobody, except for very specialty shops, ever disassembles any transmissions anymore.

Franco's in Kamloops have always been straight-shooters with me and my family... I suspect they'd tell you over the phone if they are in the "we simply replace the entire transmission" category or not.

https://www.francosautoservice.com/

I recommend having the valve body evaluated (vacuum tested) by a transmission shop. There has got to be a decent transmission shop in a city as big as Vancouver. You might ask an indy shop where they send their transmission work. Simple solenoid swap might not be the best approach. It's quite possible the valve bores are worn beyond spec, and the valve body should be rebuilt or remanufactured.
Good luck,
Brett

I know someone who got new seals put in the valve body on his Touareg at a shop in Vancouver. He had gone through a similar saga with places quoting him $8000 for replacing the whole transmission with a new one, or $4800 to replace the torque converter (wouldn't have fixed the problem), and so on. Then he found a place and got it done for $2000. Keep in mind this is a Touarag, so it's going to be expensive. Your car hopefully would cost less than that for the work you need.

The thing is, he lives in Germany now, so it may take me a while to find out what shop it was, if he remembers.

What I do know is it was located near the south end of Oak Street at Marine Drive. There are a bunch of shops around there, so maybe if you ask around you could figure out who in that area is supposedly a good transmission shop.

Looking on Google maps I think it could possibly be this place:

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Gr...dbcc714!8m2!3d49.2049146!4d-123.1320398?hl=en

Their Yelp reviews are great anyway... So maybe worth talking to them.

There's also Henneken Auto near there. I think they specialize in Mercedes, but they are in the area that was described to me. It was about five years ago, so all I really know is the rough area where the shop was, and they did take his transmission apart and fix it.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys - it truly is appreciated! Looks like I've got some phone calls to make!

Just to give you a [general service] shop's perspective, it is often the liability of trying to fix something on the cheap that is what is trying to be avoided. To replace all the solenoids and harness in the Jatco 09A inside of a Volkswagen isn't exactly a quick and easy thing. And if the problem (that YOU have evidently diagnosed?) is not remedied, that shop will still expect to be paid for what they did, and you'll still have a broken car, and likely will not be happy about it. Avoiding that altogether, especially if the shop is otherwise busy and not exactly hurting for work, is not uncommon.

While we do some control side auto trans stuff, like valve bodies, internal harnesses/lead plates, solenoids, sensors, etc. we are always very careful to both be confident of OUR diagnosis and willing to stand behind it, and call on experience of what we've done in the past.

In the case of the 09A, sometimes problems can be fixed with solenoids and a harness, sometimes not. ALL of the time a valve body (which comes complete WITH all the solenoids) will fix it. Unless it is just up and tooefed altogether, which happens. So I would not blame a shop that perhaps doesn't do a lot of Jatco stuff to side with caution and want to replace the whole valve body or the whole unit. It is their call, and their liability.