It is my wife's car and she's my bestest customer.
Her report to me was the check engine light "just" came on and the transmission "just" started slipping.
Fine.
Slap a rebuilt valve body on it and buy the time needed to orchestrate a 5-speed swap.
But what she really meant, that didn't come out till after the rebuilt valve body made no difference, was that she drove the car some additional 40 or 50 miles in Drive, *AFTER* it started slipping and the check engine light came on. Toasted.
After struggling with her not having a car for the few days it to to do the valve body swap, then finding out that the situation was not as she had initially described, I was in a serious crunch for time to get the car back on the road.
I called IPT the Friday afternoon that I realized that Freddy had indeed claimed another 01M to get a time-line on what the deal would be with them. I had to ship the trans to them and wait for it to be rebuilt and shipped back to me. They were supposed to call me back before 5:30pm, but that never happened.
I called the dealer and found out the 01M part number specified for my wife's car was "unavailable". But a fast response from Oilhammer got me straightened out on what part number 01M I really needed and they said they could have it by Tuesday. This made waiting for IPT no longer an option for me.
I called local TDI Guru Troy Sentz to ask him about the particulars of what I would encounter in swapping out the 01M since he does not have a lift either. He told me I would need help and it would be no fun as you can't get the car high enough on jack stands to use a transmission lift. He said he had always gotten someone to help him manhandle the 01M in and out and it has to be rotated 90* in the process.
My back was giving me trouble so I asked him if he could either do it or help me do it. He refereed me to a shop that specializes in German cars, nice late model BMW's, Benz and Porches mostly. For $500 they said they would do the swap in a single day.
So I drove Whitey the some 50 miles to drop it off, by manually shifting it. 1st and 2nd were still solid. It flared some going into 3rd but I worked the throttle to minimize the flair. Since 4th was like 50% slippage, I never shifted out of 3rd, except to downshift so that I could control the upshift back to 3rd. I never got over 45 mph, but at 2:00am on the side roads, it was actually a nice ride.
Tuesday I picked up the new 01M and delivered it to them late in the day. Wednesday they did the swap and we picked up the car and ofter returning Thursday for the core, I was done.
Whitey is truly a very nice driving car. We did the struts and shocks with OEM standard replacements a year or so ago. It drives smooth and quiet with no rattles, no play in wheel or looseness on the road. With the RC-II, 357 nozzles and a VNT-17 turbo, Whitey is no slouch, and is in fact how all ALH TDI's *SHOULD* have come to start with. If Cadillac made a TDI, it would be a Whitey.
My assessment of the failure: The 01M was wounded when we purchased it in 2006 with 60k one owner miles on it. The fluid was mud brown and thick. The shift into Reverse or Drive took ~3 second to complete and the 1st to 2nd gear shift was extremely soft. The Amsoil ATF probably neither helped nor hurt the 01M significantly, but doing a thorough fluid change over and then frequent fluid and filter changes probably did help. And while the 32 clicks of the KERMA line pressure mod solved the long delay going into Reverse and Drive and it firmed up the 1st to second gear shift to the point it would sometimes "bark" second gear under hard acceleration, ultimately it robbed line pressure from 3rd and 4th gear and this reduction of clamping pressure coupled with the age and wear of the valve body probably explains this mode of 01M Fail.
So to sum up this saga... it became a case of "sudden failure" that I had to resort to "crisis management" and this is why the decision was made to "Fight FAIL with moar FAIL" and slap another new completly stock 01M in there.
I believe my goal is realistic... if she can get another 100,000 miles out of this new 01M, with frequent fluid servicing, the same as before, but maybe not with Amsoil, it will have been a cost effective successful solution. The car could not be replaced for what this repair cost and it required the least amount of downtime of all the other options.
I have been told that BG makes a VW approved ATF for around $9 per quart that I will investigate. That's less than 1/2 what the dealer charges for the G-052-162-A2 ATF.
Unless there is some other "approved" ATF that others have had good success with?
Yes, 01M's suck in terms of their high repair/replacement costs and their "short lifespans". When VW says the 01M has a "lifetime fill" ATF, what they mean is the 01M will probably fail long before the ATF would fail an oil analysis.
Does that answer your question?