Das Duse
Member
I have read much of the sage advice on this site and believe I have a situation that is novel. My 2004, BEW, tiptronic, wagon with 215,000 miles: cranks immediately, idles smoothly but: put in drive or reverse and it bucks like rodeo bull; then dies. On the whole this has been a great car... but it has given me some Woody Allen moments. Last year it died. Towed to the local mechanic and arrived without it's reverse gear. The mechanic replaced the lift pump. I put a can of SeaFoam TransTune in the slush box and it was off to the races. The car ran better than ever! For one afternoon. Towed back to the Mechanic who said I needed a Tandem pump. All faith lost in that mechanic; I bought a used tandem pump on eBay and put it in myself. Still didn't run. Hmmn... turns out: "It ain't got no gas." The mechanic installed the lift pump wrong and it was showing half a tank when it was bone dry! Two pumps and a filter later so I doubt it's a fuel starvation problem. And it runs normal when warmed up. Now here is the weird part. The other morning I cranked it and when it started to buck, I shifted from Drive to 1st on the TipTronic and it idled fine...?! Also I replaced all the transmission solenoids last year to get a dependable reverse gear. I did it myself and it only took 12 hours and a herniated disk. Since then it has sometimes shifted hard from 1st -2nd when cold... But always goes into reverse! I also just replaced the anti shudder valve and cleaned the EGR valve thinking they were the culprits. No effect. I have a VAG COM cable but not a PC. Tried to use it with my neighbor last weekend but couldn't get it work with his machine. And he teaches windows? Selah. I welcome your thoughts.
UPDATE: New symptom, it will now stall at any temperature when put in drive with the brakes on. With the brakes off it will chug like a manual transmission starting from a dead stop in third gear. I've taken to parking on an incline and coasting to 5 mph before putting it in drive.
UPDATE: New symptom, it will now stall at any temperature when put in drive with the brakes on. With the brakes off it will chug like a manual transmission starting from a dead stop in third gear. I've taken to parking on an incline and coasting to 5 mph before putting it in drive.
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