P179E - Unsure

[Martin_zn]

Hi - thank you for the great forum. Hoping to get some advice. I have a 2013 Audi RS5 B8.5 with approx. 76 000km. The car only via a scan on OBD shows a P179E error with no other fault codes. I had not experienced any issues or warnings before scanning and was using a buddy's scan tool just to check anything logged in the ECU side. The car behaves fine with no errors on the dash etc. The fault does clear via OBD reset but usually comes back on a scan a couple of days later. Gear selections and changes are also fine experiencing no other symptoms.

I understand that the P179E is related to the gear selector sensor inside of the gearbox which is a complicated and expensive repair given labor costs but I'm not quite sure to wait for an actual driving issue/symptom or gear malfunction warning to come up. Just hesitant to do heart surgery since I would have never had known on the error if I did not scan (pure chance). Anyone else ever had the P179E but without any symptoms in driving or gear selections?

Would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

[hahnmgh63]

The Mechatronic electric board was updated in early '14, updating to the newest may solve your problem but first? How long has it been since the transmission was serviced? Can you have the fluid level checked?

[Martin_zn]

Hi - so I am the 2nd owner of the car. The previous owner did do a full gearbox service prior to selling the car in Feb this year. Looking at the history last night- Audi replaced the Mechatronics in 2020.

Will check the fluids but noticed these 2 TSBs that Audi put out:

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2016/SB-10093603-0699.pdf
--> This has specific conditions with the gearbox malfunction on the dash along with the P179E error amongst others.

https://dot.report/bulletins/10144639
--> This one is rather interesting. Since I only have the P179E error in the log and the history of the car shows that Audi did change the Mechatronics. Maybe they didn't follow this TSB in 2020.

Not sure if the first TSB fully applies to my situation since I don't have any gearbox malfunction/ EPC or other warnings or symptoms apart from that P179E code showing up on a data log. Hence the 2nd TSB looks interesting.