Just bought a 2002 Audi A4 Quattro 3.0 and P0741 came up with CEL

[devarinti]

Hey guys,

I am new to the forum so let me properly introduce myself. My name is Shiva and I am a new Audi owner. Never owned an Audi before, this is a first.

Anyway, I bought a 2002 Audi A4 quattro 3.0 as a daily driver for $3000. I know, the price range and a daily driver combined with german car don't go together. But, I expected time belt, some maintenance (struts), and such right away. With that said, car's incredibly clean inside and out. Not a single ding on the body and the leather looks like new. It has 102k miles on it.

Problem is I drove it yesterday well over 100 miles into Manhattan and back home to CT. Nothing feels wrong as I drive it. Trans shifts greats, nothing feels weird, no weird noises, nothing. But the CEL throws the dreaded P0741 code. I don't know if the torque converter is actually failing or if it's just the solenoid/switch issue.

So, before I run off and go do the time belt, I need to explore this TC issue. What do you guys think I should do? I've read up a whole bunch on previous threads this forum and elsewhere and the simple answer I've gotten to is, it's a fix that's worth more than the car is.

I was leaning towards saying screw it, car runs fine. I'm gonna just do a transmission fluid flush and keep driving the car as is.

I currently drive a leased Ford Mustang. Sadly for me, my lease is out by February of next year and I've essentially fallen from grace financially. So, I've regressed to sub $5k cars. I need AWD now too as I moved to upper CT and snow cleaning apparently isn't all that good. If not, I'd have stuck to a Mustang GT.

Anyway, so what do you guys think? Keep driving the car or is there a way to get it fixed under $1000/$1200 bucks? A reasonable way.

I was wondering if I could have a shop just check if it's just the solenoid/switch but I couldn't find a single forum where someone actually went about doing that. Seems like everyone just jumped to let's replace the TC or the transmission outright.

Or better yet, should I just sell the car and recoup as much as I can right away and call it a day because the car won't run very long if I drive it as it is and there are no possible reasonably priced fixes??

[Furly]

Did you buy private party or dealer ?
Sounds like someone cleared the CEL before selling it to you. Often times if purchased at a dealer they will fix it if something comes up right away. If private party, you're SOL in most states.

Also, a used transmission is cheap these days. ~$400 or so. So it's not the end of the world.

I'd find someone local that has a ross-tech cable and do a complete scan of your car and see what's really going on. Then clear all the codes and see if anything comes back.

[devarinti]

Did you buy private party or dealer ?
Sounds like someone cleared the CEL before selling it to you. Often times if purchased at a dealer they will fix it if something comes up right away. If private party, you're SOL in most states.

Also, a used transmission is cheap these days. ~$400 or so. So it's not the end of the world.

I'd find someone local that has a ross-tech cable and do a complete scan of your car and see what's really going on. Then clear all the codes and see if anything comes back.

I bought private party and I'm pretty sure the dude cleared the codes. I expected potential problems at this price range so it's not like I'm all that shocked about it. I was more so just hoping, it wouldn't be the engine or trans falling apart, which sadly it turns out it is the trans.

Yeah saw someone parting out a used tranny for $400. The labor is what's scaring me though. I've been trying to find a good independent shop that'll take a look at the car. So far no luck since the one I found basically said they're not gonna do anything about the trans. They were just like we would love to help but we just don't have the time for it right now.

Anyway, will try one more shop. I will see if I can get a used tranny swapped in for $1500 or so based on your pricing. Guess it wouldn't be worth replacing the torque converter; may as well throw in a used tranny if anything.