01M Transmission rebuild questions

I thought I answered the question, but here I go again: rebuilding your transmission depends a lot on what is wrong with it. Most AT are OK inside (hard parts) except for friction plates... Rebuiding those involve most of the time replacing the friction materials, which are available for cheap from a lot of transmission parts suppliers (OEM or aftermarket). Even if some transmissions fail beyond repair (metal parts borken, cases broken etc) there are cores available (transmission removed from cars that quit working) and therefore a relatively cheap rebuilt is achieved. In 01M case, a lot of times the planetary gears are locking up and they can't be used anymore. This is a common enough problem that will make the core transmissions pretty rare... A new set of planetary gears from the dealer (I think the dealer is the only one that provides those, except for some aftermarket companies, which sell better parts for more money that the dealer) is around $3000. If one is going to spend $3000 on planetary gears, then for sure $5000 rebuild AT is a better alternative (you can add $5000 in parts alone if you need planetary gears if you do it yourself).
Most AT owners opt for a junk yard transmission, some use AAMCO etc. Hard to say which way is better...
As far as labor from your 30 yrs experience guy: I've looked in the repair manual for this transmission and it is not an easy one. If your guy is not familiar with this transmission, and he forgets/overlooks something, you are out a few thousand $$$ in parts and your car is not working.
I think these are in short the reasons most people will not rebuild these, and good transmission shops are not too eager, either. I am a person that likes to fix things rather than replace (that is the reason I started my post with the AT) but not when parts alone far exceed the cost for a good running unit.

Fast forward 4+ years. I need an answer. Is there or is there not a performance rebuild kit for an 01M transmission?
My wifes tranny is dying and I want to have options that are better than factory if possible.

Yes, the performance kit is known as the 02J mod. Look it up. 100% success rate.

oilhammer said:

Yes, the performance kit is known as the 02J mod. Look it up. 100% success rate.

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You should have put a disclaimer on that statement, such as:

Up to 400k miles and after that, you are on your on~!

Hey, I'm at 480k! Don't jinx me!

jaed_43725 said:

Fast forward 4+ years. I need an answer. Is there or is there not a performance rebuild kit for an 01M transmission?
My wifes tranny is dying and I want to have options that are better than factory if possible.

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So, there are several options, depending on your circumstances:

1. You know it is a hard part failure and wife won't consider a manual = buy VW reman (~$5-6K) or have it rebuilt (what you are asking about here). I don't know much about this option, but I do recall seeing a website or two 4-5 years ago that offered some improved rebuild parts. No idea if they were/are any good. I ended up fixing the underlying problem for a lot less than a rebuild (see below).

2. You know its a hard part failure and wife would consider a manual = do the swap. same or less cost than VW reman, but you need to find parts and service. Long-term reliability and better fuel mileage

3. You don't know what is wrong with it but it's not acting right = find out. Post your symptoms, read up on CoolAirVW posts, and read up at kansascitytdi.com. could be corroded/failing external connectors, failing internal ribbon cable, failing internal valve body solenoids and/or valves, worn out fluid, etc. All of these are common and easy to fix.

There are basically two schools of thought about the 01M. Most jump in with "do the 5-speed swap" because before we understood the principal underlying issue (worn valve body and lack of fluid changes), most people just lived with the odd behavior (delayed engagement, occasional torque converter failure to lock up) because they were too expensive to fix. That led to hard part failure. This gave the 01M a worse rep than it probably deserved (I'm literally cringing now). Others realized that if you put some preventive maintenance in (fluid changes, rebuilding valve body) before the hard part failure, they could be kept going. Mine started failing at ~140K miles but with a ~$500 valve body rebuild (thanks to CoolairVW), it went another 100K and is still going good. While I won't argue the 01M is an awesome or even good piece of engineering, it probably isn't as bad as most make it out to be, if you take care of it.

Main point is post your symptoms and get more info before you decide on a course of action. Unless, of course, you can't think of anything better to spend $5-6K on. (I'm OK with that, BTW. your money.)

I'm so glad my wife doesn't have an issue with rowing her own gears if needed.

Because if either of my 01Vs or my 01P goes belly up, it won't get replaced with another slushbox.

We have two Jetta wagons, one stick and one automatic. Both are the same model year and purchased the same month. One car has 160,000 miles, the other 325,000 miles.

The automatic with 325k is on its original automatic tran and has never had a repair.
The stick with 160k is on its second transmission unit.

SuburbanTDI said:

We have two Jetta wagons, one stick and one automatic. Both are the same model year and purchased the same month.

One car has 160,000 miles, the other 325,000 miles.

The automatic with 325k is on its original automatic tran and has never had a repair.
The stick with 160k is on its second transmission unit.

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Awesome! Call Guiness!

oilhammer said:

Awesome! Call Guiness!

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I'm still scratching my head over it.

sdeck said:

So, there are several options, depending on your circumstances:

1. You know it is a hard part failure and wife won't consider a manual = buy VW reman (~$5-6K) or have it rebuilt (what you are asking about here). I don't know much about this option, but I do recall seeing a website or two 4-5 years ago that offered some improved rebuild parts. No idea if they were/are any good. I ended up fixing the underlying problem for a lot less than a rebuild (see below).

2. You know its a hard part failure and wife would consider a manual = do the swap. same or less cost than VW reman, but you need to find parts and service. Long-term reliability and better fuel mileage

3. You don't know what is wrong with it but it's not acting right = find out. Post your symptoms, read up on CoolAirVW posts, and read up at kansascitytdi.com. could be corroded/failing external connectors, failing internal ribbon cable, failing internal valve body solenoids and/or valves, worn out fluid, etc. All of these are common and easy to fix.

There are basically two schools of thought about the 01M. Most jump in with "do the 5-speed swap" because before we understood the principal underlying issue (worn valve body and lack of fluid changes), most people just lived with the odd behavior (delayed engagement, occasional torque converter failure to lock up) because they were too expensive to fix. That led to hard part failure. This gave the 01M a worse rep than it probably deserved (I'm literally cringing now). Others realized that if you put some preventive maintenance in (fluid changes, rebuilding valve body) before the hard part failure, they could be kept going. Mine started failing at ~140K miles but with a ~$500 valve body rebuild (thanks to CoolairVW), it went another 100K and is still going good. While I won't argue the 01M is an awesome or even good piece of engineering, it probably isn't as bad as most make it out to be, if you take care of it.

Main point is post your symptoms and get more info before you decide on a course of action. Unless, of course, you can't think of anything better to spend $5-6K on. (I'm OK with that, BTW. your money.)

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Here is another option ................. located in Cumming, Georgia

http://www.ebay.com/itm/220234227441?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

I'd like to rebuild one of these but have no idea where to get a top quality kit. And, of course, I'd need a shop manual! I've done a few old school auto trannys with good success!

I was forced to get a remanufactured 01m because one the users is disabled.
The places that reman this tranny are :
ATE transmission: http://www.atetrans.net/vw-transmission-pricing.html
A place claiming to have a higher perfromancce reman is IPT: http://www.importperformancetrans.c...--096-high-performance-transmission-3870.html
In the end we went with ATE due to cost. We did gets a bad valve body from them but they sent a replacement valve body out next day delivery. They car is shifting like a champ and runs better than it ever has before. These people are easy to deal with.
The main thing is to make sure they go completely though the valve body and replace all the solenoids and rebore all the valve body and use new valves. Thisimprovrs reliability. Also ake sure they install the transmission in car and drive it for a little while before they ship it to you.
I also posted some links to 01m/096 manuals that list all the parts i the tranny and how to troubleshoot.

SuburbanTDI said:

I'm still scratching my head over it.

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what model year? sure its and 01M?

Rebuilt properly and with a decent valve body, they will last just fine. My local rebuilders do them all the time and have a 0% return rate.

When mine goes, Cool air will get my VB and I'll either do it myself, learn, or have my rebuilders do it. There are some kits with more clutch plates so I'll be looking into those.

What is a budgetary $ number for replacing the O1M with a manual - 2003 jetta tdi 188,000 mileage?

FERDROCK said:

What is a budgetary $ number for replacing the O1M with a manual - 2003 jetta tdi 188,000 mileage?

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I don't think mileage has anything to do with the price for a swap...

Parts will be close to $1k (depends on where you get them and what condition- also an issue of what clutch). Labor kind of depends. If you have someone do it I'm thinking that you could be looking at $2k to $3k. If you do the work then you're looking at just the price of parts (plus bandages).

FERDROCK said:

What is a budgetary $ number for replacing the O1M with a manual - 2003 jetta tdi 188,000 mileage?

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I did a swap myself for about $1000 last winter. Living in Alaska, I was very lucky to find locally a used 02J transmission with axles attached.

FL2AK-tdi said:

It took 36 minutes for someone to automatically condemn the entire transmission and advise gutting the entire system and completely replacing it with something totally different.

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Well ya, some thing just is facts. From what I have read here, an O1M is not a desirable tranny to have in your Dub.

Inferior engineering is why I replaced my DMF with a SMF and I would take a lot less than 36 minutes to tell someone about it.

If you are planning a manual swap, your best bet is to find a wrecked car or one with a blown engine, that way, you have everything you need. Too bad you weren`t closer, I kept all the bits to do a swap but shipping would hurt.

Ol'Rattler said:

Well ya, some thing just is facts. From what I have read here, an O1M is not a desirable tranny to have in your Dub.
.

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They do have issues, but can also be a good trans. I`ve had a few over 350K and even towed with one with 400K,

Ol'Rattler said:

Well ya, some thing just is facts. From what I have read here, an O1M is not a desirable tranny to have in your Dub.

Inferior engineering is why I replaced my DMF with a SMF and I would take a lot less than 36 minutes to tell someone about it.

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He isn't here anymore. The post is 6 years old.