Got a good one for you

I talked to CoolAirVW and he told me his rebuilt valve bodies for the 01M like I have in my 02 Jetta TDI fix the problem my scan codes (and the VCDS scan codes a VCDS owner got for me) indicate a great majority of the time. So, I take my car to a local garage and tell the guy I want him to take a look at the trans for wear.

I thought he would drop the pan, look for a lot of metal shavings and such and come out and tell me if there were a lot of metal particles indicating a lot of wear in the gears and such or tell me not a lot in there - then I would know if the valve body replacement would work, or if the trans had gotten beyond the point where valve body replacement was going to fix it. Figured if he was a good mechanic he would even bring the pan in and show me.

So, he drives it in, hooks it up to the scanner, then comes out and tells me that the code he got indicates a bad trans and torque converter and I should replace both - for a fee, of course. Hehe

I tell him I have consulted people who specialize in this type of car and the transmission in it, and explain to him the best way to check for what I want to know is to drop the pan, look at the magnet in the pan and tell/show me if there are a lot of metal particles in the pan.

With a straight face, and without even breaking eye contact, he tells me his scanner indicated that the 'wear sensors' in the trans were showing that the trans was 95% worn out He said it must be replaced!

How do these guys even stay in business? But I wouldn't play poker against the guy, 1 He would probably try to deal from the bottom of the deck, and 2 he had one HECK of a poker face - when he told me that his expression didn't even flicker. lol

I didn't tell him I have a high end scanner, probably as good or better than the one he was using in his 'shop' (not as good as VCDS I know, but I had someone scan it with VCDS as well).

I also didn't tell him that while I don't work on cars much, my dad was an ASE Master Mechanic who had people bring cars to him from 100's of miles away in our state and other states. I do know a little about them, my brother knows much more. By the time I started kindergarten I could do my ABC's and read (my mom) and I could tell you a 5/8ths socket was bigger than a 1/2 inch and what a tenth, hundredth or a thousandth was (my dad).

I'll drop the pan and check for myself. Just thought you all might get a kick out of that one. lol

While I have not yet myself had to (recently) work on a transmission, I did look into an older Mercedes which needed trans work - since I've turned to doing most of my own work, I looked into the idea of tackling the trans myself. I did a ton of research.

While I passed on the car, I found:

1) Transmission rebuilds, while certainly complex, are not as complicated as trans-shops make them out to be.

2) The profit margins for trans rebuilders must be sky-high, given what they charge, and the time it actually takes a skilled rebuilder to do the job.

3) Many times, a trans doesn't need a complete rebuild - there are issues that can be dealt with without tearing the trans down and completely rebuilding.

4) Since the general public is completely unaware of the above, and has no clue how to deal with a transmission, trans shops can pretty much say what they want/do what they want/charge what they want.

Puntmeister, I do agree wholeheartedly with what you said in MOST cases these days, on most shops and particularly the dealerships or 'stealerships' as many people have taken to calling them these days. But there are exceptions out there, very few and far between of course.

I have talked to some people on the "Trusted TDI Guru" list here on a sticky thread in one of the forums, at the top of this forum if I remember correctly. The ones I spoke to seemed knowledgeable and honest, I got the feeling they would treat one right. Don't get me wrong, even when dealing with people from this list one would be wise to remember "buyer beware".

But I think you would stand a better chance when dealing with someone from that list. Unfortunately for me, there aren't any of the guru's 'close' to where I live. In fact, if I don't see a lot of signs of wear when I drop the pan on my 01M trans, I will probably be ordering a rebuilt valve body from CoolAirVW. He has a rep on here for doing good work and "getting it right".

And, he clearly stated when we talked on the phone there are no guarantees in life about mechanical devices (or as I would say, no guarantees about anything in life) - as he said it still might not fix my problem, or there could be mechanical failure, etc. It's important for a mechanic to clearly inform the customer that even done right, there are still possibilities for things to go wrong down the road - he did so and I appreciated that he does this. Especially when you consider he doesn't have his hands on the car to take a look himself. The 01M trans has a bad rep on here anyway.

And I think these stealerships and bad shops out there annoy the guru's to no end probably, gives everyone in the business a bad name.

It sounds like you had already heard what you wanted to hear, and had made a decision on your course of action based on the more favorable-to-you diagnosis. So why did you bother to go for a second opinion? From reading between the lines you weren't about to have the local garage do any work based on their opinion of the actions needed to correct the problem you have.

So now I have to go check my "wear sensors" in my tranny.
Great story Hoosier.

So just crawl under the car and do what needs to be done, nothing more.

Lug_Nut said:

It sounds like you had already heard what you wanted to hear, and had made a decision on your course of action based on the more favorable-to-you diagnosis. So why did you bother to go for a second opinion? From reading between the lines you weren't about to have the local garage do any work based on their opinion of the actions needed to correct the problem you have.

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Lug Nut, I'm not even going to try to explain the humor in that story. I'm just hoping if you ever wander into a garage and a guy says the 'wear sensors' are telling the code scanner the trans is 95% worn out, you will run not walk out of the shop.

Now about my 'preconceived notions' and my 'mind already being made up', I got my notions from talking to CoolAirVW, and he has just a wee bit of a reputation on here for knowing a little bit about a VW trans. Took it in for this guy to look at because my old Army buddy thought he was a good mechanic I should let check the pan for signs of metal particles, which would indicate trans wear beyond what a valve body replacement would fix. Old Army buddy no longer thinks the guy is much of a mechanic by the way

Sadly, I did drop the pan and I'm pretty sure this trans is past what a valve body replacement would take care of, even a CoolAirVW rebuilt valve body

So the guy at the local garage was right after all?

jhinsc said:

So the guy at the local garage was right after all?

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Not unless you have a code reader at home that gets codes from imaginary 'wear sensors' in a VW 01M automatic transmission, or an automatic transmission in any other Brand of car on the planet and it can tell you that a trans is 95% worn out, no he was not right.

I stood at the window and watched his procedure. 1. Tech hooks up code scanner. 2. Talks to shop owner. 3. Owner comes back in and tells me trans is shot.

I tell him a noted expert on them has told me that a valve body replacement will probably fix it if I have caught it in time, and I did not want him to hook it up to a code reader, I HAVE a code reader and it has been scanned numerous times (which I had told him before when I called to set the appointment up), I reminded him I brought it to him to check for signs of wear. I tell him you have to drop the pan and check the magnet for metal particles when looking for wear. Then he tells me code reader showed that the 'wear sensors' in the transmission were showing the transmission is 95% worn out.

I guess I am going to have to explain the humor of the story, and also explain where that shop would not know anything more than I would about the situation. And read Cogen Man's post here, he got the humor right away when he said now he had to go check his wear sensors in his tranny.

The 'technician' didn't even drop the pan people, just hooked it up to a code scanner. The first shop I took it to did that. I did that. If you don't drop the pan and look for metal particles on the magnet, you can't tell if there has been one micron of wear to the trans or if there is only 1 micron thickness of material left in some spots.

You absolutely have to drop the pan people. Why? Because there is no such thing as a WEAR SENSOR in an automatic transmission! MANUAL transmissions have clutch wear INDICATORS for the CLUTCH, and high end and very new cars you will stand a good chance of having wear sensors on your BRAKES.

Automatic Transmission and wear sensor? Never heard of them. The mechanics I have talked to - never heard of such a thing. Check google, read wikipedia, you will find all kinds of hits on manual trans clutch wear INDICATORS and BRAKE wear sensors, nothing about automatic trans wear sensors.

My brother, who built muscle cars and made enough money off of it to stay in beer, cigs and everything a growing teenage boy needs - never heard of it. Brother said he would have come right back with "my bullcrap sensor is showing you're 100% full of bull" when the shop owner told him that.

So here is the humor of the story for those who can't figure it out - there is no such thing as wear sensors in an automatic transmission!!! It's a unicorn, a mythical creature. It doesn't exist. It's the kind of thing the mechanics in the Army motor pool send a newbie out looking for. It's like the '100 feet of flight line' we in Transportation and Army Aviation would occasionally, very rarely, get a newb who didn't know what it was and we could send him out looking for it for hours giving everyone on base a good laugh. Because 'flight line' is the landing strip at an air facility, and you better be godzilla to bring back 100 feet of it, and it doesn't come in 'coils'.

And now that I have explained what the humor is, the joke in this situation, to people who want to try to defend a shop that would try to get business through the most ridiculous type of fraud that exists, the joke no longer seems so funny and I'm sorry I posted it up here in the first place.

So maybe I can salvage some good out of the posts I have made. If you ever go into an automotive establishment - dealership, garage or a shade tree mechanic gets ahold of your car. Whatever you do, no matter what happens, if he tells you his code reader is getting codes from the automatic trans WEAR SENSOR. Don't walk, don't crawl, run to your car and jump in and burn rubber getting out of there because it is the kind of place you do NOT want working on YOUR car. Thank you and good night. lol

I like your style Hoosier. Hard to believe no one else saw your humour. And after my reply I went looking for my transmission wear sensors. I couldn't find them. But maybe its because I didn't have the special code reader. That's more humour folks.
It's a good thread mate and bang on with its title. "Got a good one for you". To me it was.

He who laughs last.... Didn't get the joke.

Thanks Cogen Man, sorry I got you going on a wild goose chase looking for those wear sensors. Tell you how I'll make it up to you, I'm on a Unicorn hunt for that special code scanner.

And when I find that baby, I'll make it up to you by including you on my small list of people that will get a private message on here telling you where you can get one too!

I guess not Geordi, I like your sig lol

tell us more about these manual clutch wear sensors please.

DPM said:

tell us more about these manual clutch wear sensors please.

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Yeah ;-)

If you look at my posts, it isn't a 'wear sensor' it is a wear INDICATOR. Being no expert on cars, I did a bit of googling.

http://www.howacarworks.com/transmission/adjusting-the-clutch

quote from above "Some cars have an indicator light on the instrument panel that registers clutch wear. The light comes on when the clearance is insufficient."

http://automotivedictionary.blogspot.com/2009/09/clutch-servo-service-manual.html

"The Clutch servo consists of three parts:

- Hydraulic slave cylinder
- Control Valve
- Pneumatic Servo cylinder

Some of the other optional accessories available with clutch servo are

- Electrical trigger through a electrical sensor to activate transmission control
- Mechanical wear indicator"

There is no sensor, and I doubt you will find that indicator lamp on the dash of anything other than a high end car with a manual in it - think Jag or high end Mercedes or Ferrari. The usual procedure for checking manual transmission clutch wear, on a semi, is to take the inspection plate off of the clutch and look. I do know that one, my brother is an owner operator with 4 semi's. I would assume the procedure is the same in a car/pickup with a manual, but you might have to break open the clutch on a car/pickup with a manual to look.

The whole point of the post is there is no WEAR SENSOR in an automatic transmission, especially not a VW 01M automatic transmission. You can nitpick my posts all day, and it won't change that fact. It also won't change the fact that a shop trying to say a code scanner told them my trans is shot would be a "stealershop".

HoosierTDI said:

Thanks Cogen Man, sorry I got you going on a wild goose chase looking for those wear sensors. Tell you how I'll make it up to you, I'm on a Unicorn hunt for that special code scanner.

And when I find that baby, I'll make it up to you by including you on my small list of people that will get a private message on here telling you where you can get one too!

Click to expand...

What you don't have a Unicorn I've had one in my barn for 3 years now. But I can't take a picture of her. She's like a vampire and doesn't show up. And yes all Unicorns are females ???? Looking forward to your pm on wear sensor code scanner location.

Good one Cogen