Sorry im going to beat on the old DSG dead horse in hopes someone hears my cry!

[Tmalcom08]

About 3 months ago my wife fell in love with a 2011 Audi S5 Convertible and I have to admit I was impressed with the car as well. Myself being a mechanic I have always veered very far away from Audi, but she really liked this car lol so I spoke to a Mechanic friend of mine who specializes in Audi and informed me that it should be an ok buy since the DSG design was changed in 2011. I bought the car (happy wife happy life) it has around 93K miles on it and is a blast to drive when it runs I'm spending more time under it than in it. Two weeks go by and the wife comes home not so happy and says the car is jerking when she stops, I have heard about the little jerks you can get from a DSG so I comforted her in just blaming it on that but she insisted I take it for a drive. The first couple of miles were ok but then I came to a stop at a red light and experienced what I can only describe as a whiplash inducing downshift from 2 to 1.... the car literally lurched so hard forward if a car was in front of me I would have hit them. I immediately scheduled an appt. with North Atlanta Audi which of course took 2 weeks to get an open spot plus the airbag recall needed to be done. I drop the car off at the dealership and get a call the next day saying it looks like it needs an update on the TCM we will try that for $390. So the update was done and I receive a call the next day and it was "well the update didn't work were going to have to replace the Mechatronic unit imagine my surprise when she threw the $3400 repair estimate my way, at that point I knew I should have stuck with Lexus lol. So I had to deny the repairs I had just purchased the vehicle (still had dealer tag when I took it into the shop) so the extra money for repairs was in the down payment on the car lol.. Was supposed to have a aftermarket Warranty on the vehicle that I supposedly purchased when I bought the car come to find out the dealership did not file the paperwork with the warranty company so I am SOL! Did some research and found the DSG repair kit that was released by VW for the issues on the mechatronic unit. We continued to drive the car every now and then until the lurching worsened my wife's back injury. On the bright side it makes a beautiful yard ornament, because that is what it turned into about 2 weeks later, I lost R,2,4,6 gears, I ordered the repair kit and installed it last night about 3 hours on my back in the dark and low and behold reinstalled everything and car was driving great until it warmed up and then here comes the injury inducing 2-1 downshift. I tested the old harness that I pulled off of the Mech unit and found multiple shorts which I guess was causing my issues but I also believe that this lurching issue is coming from the gear position sensors housing that does not come with the repair kit. The Mechatronic unit will have to be replaced before the car will be drivable. Why was this older mechatronic unit not listed for a recall there are so many TSB's on this transmission its not even funny. I'm not having a very good experience with my first Audi and believe it will be my last, I hear Subaru has a nice AWD platform and are a blast to drive.

So here is my confusion over the years I have owned lots of cars and have done a lot of driving why is it that My 2014 F-150 Has 140k miles on it with no issues I have a 2003 Ford Mustang V6 with 180k miles on it still drives great another 2003 Mustang Cobra with 40k miles on it and the 2008 Lexus IS300 I traded in on my F-150 had 278k miles on it Granted it needed a little work but it had 278K miles on it! several other cars that have carried well over 100K miles with no problems. Now I have a 2011 Audi S5 Cabriolet prestige with 93K miles on it and its a gamble to pull out of the driveway.

Any help from AoA would be welcome and a blessing because at the moment I am dead in the water.

[Audi USA]

Hello,

I would very much appreciate the opportunity to look into this matter for you to determine if there are any opportunities for Audi of America to assist. I completely understand how this type of experience can ruin your overall feelings of the car and not to mention the reliability, when you are concerned of a breakdown every time you pull out of the driveway. Are you able to send over a private message with your contact information, VIN, and information on the maintenance history? Thank you.

[Tmalcom08]

Thank you
pm sent.

[rich703]

Hi Vincenzo

My story is virtually identical to Tmalcom08 story posted 7-13-2018.

I my case I just bought a 2011 S5 Cabriolet with 7 speed DSG. VIN WAUVGAFH2BN014845 with 65,777 miles on it. I had just sold my 2003 E39 M5, so this was my first experience with Audi and DGS. I was just getting used to it, it was driving great for the first 4 days of ownership, then the transmission threw a TPMS and Transmission fault lights on, and went into limp mode.

I took it back to guy I had bought it from, and got a lot more history on it. The car was originally from Napa, CA , bought and serviced by Marin Audi. The original owner had jerky shifting issues at 58,000 miles around 12/2019 and the dealer replaced the mechtronic unit. Then, about a year later in Sept 2020, he had the same same complaint - dealer checked it over did mechtronic adjustments , but didn't get better until the trottle body was cleaned/service.

Then in August 2021, the original owner sells it to the guy I bought it from 2 weeks ago. In Sept 2021, he (a BMW engineer and his Audi expert buddy) goes through the car to make sure all is well for a cross country cruise - including pulling the mechtronics unit and replacing all the solenoids along with the full DSG repair kit (sourced in China).

He claims he had never seen any DSG faults before or after his service, but at the time he sold it to me he had driven it less than 300 miles.

I got 120 miles before it failed. Now it sits dead in the garage. An overnight rest gets it back to the point it drives ok for about 10 minutes (maybe enough time to get it to a service center) but then throws the same error messages and goes into limp mode. It then is barely drivable - will move forward in 1-2 or 3 for about 5-10 seconds, then disengage into neutral for 3-4 seconds, then catch again and run another 10 seconds.

I bought a OBDeleven and a VCDS analyzer as I am poised to pour $$$ into this. The error codes come back with 01315 - communication error? and P17D400 - Valve 3 in partial transmission 1 errors, which may mean something about the clutch slipping - not sure.

Also the gas milege is horrible - less than 12 mpg driving granny slow in neighborhood as gently as possible.

While I know you are far away in michigan, I saw you reached out on this previously, so would appreciate any insight or assistance on this.

I want to be a Audi lover, but if I can't fix this soon, it will be back to BMW for me - had nothing but BMW for 40 years, wanted to try something new, but not working out so far.

Please advise.

Richard
[email protected]

- - - Updated - - -

Hi Vincenzo

My story is virtually identical to Tmalcom08 story posted 7-13-2018.

I my case I just bought a 2011 S5 Cabriolet with 7 speed DSG. VIN WAUVGAFH2BN014845 with 65,777 miles on it. I had just sold my 2003 E39 M5, so this was my first experience with Audi and DGS. I was just getting used to it, it was driving great for the first 4 days of ownership, then the transmission threw a TPMS and Transmission fault lights on, and went into limp mode.

I took it back to guy I had bought it from, and got a lot more history on it. The car was originally from Napa, CA , bought and serviced by Marin Audi. The original owner had jerky shifting issues at 58,000 miles around 12/2019 and the dealer replaced the mechtronic unit. Then, about a year later in Sept 2020, he had the same same complaint - dealer checked it over did mechtronic adjustments , but didn't get better until the trottle body was cleaned/service.

Then in August 2021, the original owner sells it to the guy I bought it from 2 weeks ago. In Sept 2021, he (a BMW engineer and his Audi expert buddy) goes through the car to make sure all is well for a cross country cruise - including pulling the mechtronics unit and replacing all the solenoids along with the full DSG repair kit (sourced in China).

He claims he had never seen any DSG faults before or after his service, but at the time he sold it to me he had driven it less than 300 miles.

I got 120 miles before it failed. Now it sits dead in the garage. An overnight rest gets it back to the point it drives ok for about 10 minutes (maybe enough time to get it to a service center) but then throws the same error messages and goes into limp mode. It then is barely drivable - will move forward in 1-2 or 3 for about 5-10 seconds, then disengage into neutral for 3-4 seconds, then catch again and run another 10 seconds.

I bought a OBDeleven and a VCDS analyzer as I am poised to pour $$$ into this. The error codes come back with 01315 - communication error? and P17D400 - Valve 3 in partial transmission 1 errors, which may mean something about the clutch slipping - not sure.

Also the gas milege is horrible - less than 12 mpg driving granny slow in neighborhood as gently as possible.

While I know you are far away in michigan, I saw you reached out on this previously, so would appreciate any insight or assistance on this.

I want to be a Audi lover, but if I can't fix this soon, it will be back to BMW for me - had nothing but BMW for 40 years, wanted to try something new, but not working out so far.

Please advise.

Richard
[email protected]

[Stubek]

Vincenzo has not been on here in over a year and AoA has no one supporting this at this time. You might be better served posting in the proper forum for your car.