2001 Jetta auto with Tranny problems

Hi everyone. I'm a new TDI owner and i was wondering if anyone knows of a good place to order transmissions? I've got an 01 Jetta automatic with 250,000 miles that has a hard time going into 1st. Does great with all other gears and on the highway. Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas? We were thinking of buying our own tranny and putting it in ourselves (my husband is handy that way), can anyone give me any "tricks" or trusted locations that sells them? I'm from Duluth MN.

Thanks!!

You have certainly had good luck if that's the first automatic transmission in the car but don't expect the same life out of a used one. They typically fail before 150,000 miles. The better option is to upgrade to a manual transmission, but that may not be a viable solution for you. There is a guy here that repairs them and does a good job, but his name escapes me.

http://www.atetrans.net/
Autobahn Transmission Exchange
Reading PA (610)375-8330

karijohn007 said:

Hi everyone. I'm a new TDI owner and i was wondering if anyone knows of a good place to order transmissions? I've got an 01 Jetta automatic with 250,000 miles that has a hard time going into 1st. Does great with all other gears and on the highway. Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas? We were thinking of buying our own tranny and putting it in ourselves (my husband is handy that way), can anyone give me any "tricks" or trusted locations that sells them? I'm from Duluth MN.

Thanks!!

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Hi northland neighbor!!
My thought would be to find a 5 speed and swap out the automatic because even a brand new 01M automatic ($$$$) won't last as long as the rest of the car.
Most "rebuilt" genaric sourced aftermarket 01M's aren't worth installing. Do some searching on the forum and pay attention to/look for posts by CoolAirVw. Rich has written some great posts about these trannys. Unfortunately, his shop is in Kansas City, a long ways from you. He's diagnosed a lot of issues and it may be worth getting ahold of him for some advice.
My wife and daugter are in Duluth today-shopping....

Thanks for all of the advice, sounds like manual is the way to go (which is perferable to me anyhow). My only MAJOR question is how hard is this to do for someone that just "tinkers" with repairs? My husband does our repairs for the most part and he's a little nervous to do a swap. He's done it all but it'd be his first major repair. Helpful tips? Easier than it looks? HELP!

Jetawreck: Goodluck with the shopping, probably cheaper to be in MY shoes!

Kari, you could find the thread titled something like "Project kill the wabbit... or how I learned to love the manual swap". I think that's pretty close. That has the details of how to do the swap. There is no magic involved, VCDS to get into the ECu will be needed as I understand it, but if he can read and follow directions, it's not a big deal.

karijohn007 said:

Thanks for all of the advice, sounds like manual is the way to go (which is perferable to me anyhow). My only MAJOR question is how hard is this to do for someone that just "tinkers" with repairs? My husband does our repairs for the most part and he's a little nervous to do a swap. He's done it all but it'd be his first major repair. Helpful tips? Easier than it looks? HELP!

Jetawreck: Goodluck with the shopping, probably cheaper to be in MY shoes!

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Oh, I didn't go shopping with them. No way!!
But, I bet there will be some new shoes involved....
I've never done the auto/5 speed swap myself, mostly due to the fact that I've avoided the 01M like the plauge. But, Ive done an engine swap, a TB and head replacement, etc and for the most part w/help on the forum most of these things are pretty well documented and do-able with some research and forum help.
Probably the hardest part of the project is rounding up the parts before starting in on it.
I have VCDS cable.

It sounds like you could get some experience with the swap by helping them, Jettawreck.

whitedog said:

It sounds like you could get some experience with the swap by helping them, Jettawreck.

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I wouldn't be opposed to that. I could always learn plenty from the experience.
Now I see the profile has been changed from Duluth, MN to South Range, WI. That's Packer country across the bridge.....

You don't like Cheeseheads?

I have to admit, i'm a little bit of both. I live in WI and work up in MN, kind of like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. We're leaning towards doing the swap, where abouts are you from? We'd definitely welcome the help as this would be the first time we dug into a TDI. Let me know if you're ever in the area and i'll let you know when we start the project. I'm sure we can scroung up a few brats to throw on the grill for ya.

I'm sure we can scroung up a few brats to throw on the grill for ya.

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Won't their parent's know they disappeared?

LOL, thanks for the chuckle so early in the morning. I meant bratwurst...sausages, not the bratty kids down the street. However i'm not sure their parents would actually mind

whitedog said:

You don't like Cheeseheads?

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It's not the cheeseheads, just the Packers. It's a MN/WI thing.

Not much of a Viking (or football in general) fan either.

The drive to get across Duluth and the bridge makes for a longer trip there and back.

karijohn007 said:

I have to admit, i'm a little bit of both. I live in WI and work up in MN, kind of like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. We're leaning towards doing the swap, where abouts are you from? We'd definitely welcome the help as this would be the first time we dug into a TDI. Let me know if you're ever in the area and i'll let you know when we start the project. I'm sure we can scroung up a few brats to throw on the grill for ya.

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I'm about 80 miles west of Duluth.
Let me know if you go ahead with the swap, I could come down for a daytrip and lend a hand and some tools.
You can send a PM for an email/phone #.
Marc

Make sure you have someone fairly proficient at wiring/soldering/electrical troubleshooting etc. There will be a little bit of that involved that's for sure. Also, after the swap the engine will most likely need to be adjusted via VagCom in regards to IQ and perhaps timing. Hammer mod may need to be performed to get it into the range you desire. My car ran like crap right after the swap-kinda made me wish I hadn't done the swap until I worked the kinks out with VagCom. The ECU will need to be recodded also. I would say with all hands on deck you all could accomplish the task. Just read the "Project Kill Da Auto Wabbit" Thread a few times through and make sure you have all the necessary parts before hand. As always, there will be plenty of help from the other side of the computer screen if needed

Thanks for the help. All sounds greek to me but my husband seemed to know exactly what you were talking about. I'll keep your name handy for any questions. THANK YOU!!!!