WOT in 3rd gear, loud bang, no power

Starting at the end:

I just picked up my 2003 TDI from Jon Hamilton today, after being without the car for about three weeks. Three weeks ago, after a few seconds of WOT in third gear, I hear a loud bang. The tachometer spins into the red while car slows to a stop. Result: Engine fine, transmission hosed. Parts of third gear made their way out of the transmission an onto the skid plate.

So what to do. I have no relationship with any local mechanics, so I had the car towed to Jon's (four hour drive). That was a bit expensive, but worth the piece of mind of having someone I know wrenching on the car. Jon does some transmission work, but I elected to have German Transaxle of America in Bend Oregon rebuilt the tranny. My 02J already had a taller fifth and Peloquin, so a new or remanufactured unit wouldn't be the same.

Nice to have the car back. All appears well with the fixed transmission. I now have a failing temp sensor, but that seems easy enough for me to fix.

The folks at German Transaxle were a joy to deal with. They were impressed with the failure mode. They guessed that third gear was defective from the factory, resulting in it shattering under load.

ssw

ssw said:

Starting at the end:

I just picked up my 2003 TDI from Jon Hamilton today, after being without the car for about three weeks. Three weeks ago, after a few seconds of WOT in third gear, I hear a loud bang. The tachometer spins into the red while car slows to a stop. Result: Engine fine, transmission hosed. Parts of third gear made their way out of the transmission an onto the skid plate.

So what to do. I have no relationship with any local mechanics, so I had the car towed to Jon's (four hour drive). That was a bit expensive, but worth the piece of mind of having someone I know wrenching on the car. Jon does some transmission work, but I elected to have German Transaxle of America in Bend Oregon rebuilt the tranny. My 02J already had a taller fifth and Peloquin, so a new or remanufactured unit wouldn't be the same.

Nice to have the car back. All appears well with the fixed transmission. I now have a failing temp sensor, but that seems easy enough for me to fix.

The folks at German Transaxle were a joy to deal with. They were impressed with the failure mode. They guessed that third gear was defective from the factory, resulting in it shattering under load.

ssw

Click to expand...

Wow awesome! German transaxle is pretty good to deal with. Did pieces pass through the case? or the cover?

3rd's a weak link , i had 3rd blow up on me on my 02a a couple of years or so back and my 5th gear did the same about 18 months ago.....there's a few bad pictures of 5th in my photo album showing most of the teeth off the planetary gone and quite a few missing from the gear itself.

Very worrying and is one of the main reasons i don't drag race.....it just can't handle the torque.