OV9

So, my wife's 10 year old faultless Yeti is no longer faultless. The mechatronic has shat its pants.

It's a P173B sensor fault, which is one of the sensors for the second set of gears/clutch, so basically you lose 2/4/6 and reverse unless you power cycle the engine. The car is basically undriveable, but I coaxed it up the a local gearbox specialist this morning for them to look at it.

Normally with mechs I'd have thought it was a repair or exchange for a refurb unit. However, their two suppliers for this (actronics and ecu-testing) have both let them down with bad units coming back and as such all their offering at the moment is a new mechatronic, fitting, programming etc. This is spendy, at £2400.

We need the car - my wife does the nursery drop, shopping, days out etc. I'm helping out where I can as I work from home but this won't sustain.

I _could_ source a refurbed unit for £1295 (after exchange deposit), but that would still need fitting and coding. VW have taken a leaf out of Apples book and code these damn things to the car, so just swapping in another one isn't simple as you need to factor in the recoding of the parts.

I don't know what to do. Do we go for the remanufactured unit just to get it going and then just trade the car in for something else? Do we get the remanufactured unit and trust it for the next 3 years? Or do we take the plunge on the new unit for £2400 all in? Need some brainstorming here guys. Lots of expenditure at the moment so this has come at a bad time one way or another.

Ouch.

Worth talking to a DSG specialist? Quick google threw up these guys

As the everyday family bus, if I wasn’t able to do the job myself I’d take whatever route gives you the most reliability.

It’s a pain in the arse when your main car isn’t in use.

With family and dogs to move etc, a simple fault can be drawn out for weeks.

Dave!

mik wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 4:00 pm Ouch.

Worth talking to a DSG specialist? Quick google threw up these guys

That's where the car is Mik

But I've just got off the phone to them and they won't fit a customer supplied mechatronic, so with them currently it's new or nothing.

All the local garages and specialists round here use these guys

https://www.mackie-transmission.com/

they rebuilt the box in my Elise.

I presume they checked this, but a blown fuse can fire that fault code.
30a fuse for J743 DCT control unit.
If you replace it and it goes again if confirms the control unit has failed, just a sense check before spending loads!

There was a guy featured in salvage rebuilds UK YouTube channel. Looked good, will try and find details. Long wait mentioned in vid though.

This is https://jrvs.co/about-us/ I believe.

scotta wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 4:50 pm All the local garages and specialists round here use these guys

https://www.mackie-transmission.com/

they rebuilt the box in my Elise.

Thanks Scott. The issue is getting the unit out and back in if using them. It'll still need to be reset and you need a garage to do that.

16vCento wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 5:01 pm I presume they checked this, but a blown fuse can fire that fault code.
30a fuse for J743 DCT control unit.
If you replace it and it goes again if confirms the control unit has failed, just a sense check before spending loads!

Yup. It's only intermittent, not 100% dead. Just unreliable enough to be undrivable.

Shlergen wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 5:10 pm There was a guy featured in salvage rebuilds UK YouTube channel. Looked good, will try and find details. Long wait mentioned in vid though.

This is https://jrvs.co/about-us/ I believe.

Thanks! Will investigate them.

Are we getting old and boring? Simon is asking for help with an actual technical problem and you're all piling in with useful advice. Not a single suggestion of polishing his MAF (oo-er)?

DeskJockey wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:59 pm Are we getting old and boring?..

Yes!

Unless your mileage is very high I guess the car is worth in the £7k-£9k region in which case it would seem that £2400 is a reasonable spend as long as it is otherwise in good nick. As in, if you were to try and offload it you would probably get £5k at best and then essentially be back at square one.
Your disadvantage I guess is you're short on time if you need it back.

By all means investigate cheaper options but it sounds to me like you might have to bite the bullet?

Other alternative is to offload the car for £5k and use this as an opportunity for an upgrade?

Simon wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:11 pm

scotta wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 4:50 pm All the local garages and specialists round here use these guys

https://www.mackie-transmission.com/

they rebuilt the box in my Elise.

Thanks Scott. The issue is getting the unit out and back in if using them. It'll still need to be reset and you need a garage to do that.

Even if its the same unit going back in?

DeskJockey wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:59 pm Are we getting old and boring? Simon is asking for help with an actual technical problem and you're all piling in with useful advice. Not a single suggestion of polishing his MAF (oo-er)?

You might be on to something there Alex.

SImon, have you tried moving it 6" to the left?

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:40 am

DeskJockey wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:59 pm Are we getting old and boring? Simon is asking for help with an actual technical problem and you're all piling in with useful advice. Not a single suggestion of polishing his MAF (oo-er)?

You might be on to something there Alex.

SImon, have you tried moving it 6" to the left?

That's more like it.

scotta wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:14 am

Simon wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:11 pm

scotta wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 4:50 pm All the local garages and specialists round here use these guys

https://www.mackie-transmission.com/

they rebuilt the box in my Elise.

Thanks Scott. The issue is getting the unit out and back in if using them. It'll still need to be reset and you need a garage to do that.

Even if its the same unit going back in?

This is a good point.

Dave!

DeskJockey wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:42 am

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:40 am

DeskJockey wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:59 pm Are we getting old and boring? Simon is asking for help with an actual technical problem and you're all piling in with useful advice. Not a single suggestion of polishing his MAF (oo-er)?

You might be on to something there Alex.

SImon, have you tried moving it 6" to the left (YC)?

That's more like it.

More better.

scotta wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 10:47 am

DeskJockey wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:42 am

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:40 am

You might be on to something there Alex.

SImon, have you tried moving it 6" to the left (YC)?

That's more like it.

More better.

A lot more betterer or just a little bit more betterer?

Thanks for all the thoughts and suggestions. Out of idle curiosity I got a quote from Skoda today for the same - £300 higher still!

The upshot is that I could get a remanufactured unit for £1295, get the release tool from VW/Skoda, get a VCDS cable from ebay (to move the forks into the right position for removal and for basic settings after fitting) and basically do it myself. But then I still have a remanufactured unit, have to spend hours under the car and the worry is that it goes wrong again anyway in 18-24 months time.

So we've just decided to bite the bullet and have them fit a new one over at CCM. It's not cheap but looking at Autotrader today it's worth a lot more than we paid for it nearly 4 years ago and it's 'only' got 60k on the clock. We'll run it for about 3 more years - until we've moved house basically - then swap it. Maybe for an Enyaq or an XC60.