Hi guys,

my first posting, although I've been reading this excellent forum for the last month and have parted with lots of cash for an 89 TT auto.

The problem happened late last night, after a long drive back from Brighton. I was cruising slowly back along A roads (I even let 2 Peugeots overtake me so I wasn't pushing it) and suddenly there was a noise and the car instantly dropped its speed a bit. I couldn't tell what sort of noise it was as the stereo was on pretty loud. I instantly pulled to the side of the road, got out and checked over the car. I then tried to drive forwards and I got the sound of metal on metal, as if my exhaust pipe was dragging along the ground or my brakes had some debris between the pads and disk. I checked again but nothing obvious. It was past midnight and I needed at least some sleep during the weekend before getting up for work so I decided to limp it home. After about 200 yards of painful sounding noise it was suddenly normal again and it drove back fine. I noticed I couldn't turn the aircon off, the hi, lo and rec buttons didn't always work (although this was intermittant) and when I tried to reverse it into the garage reverse gear didn't engage (I could hear the faint noise it makes before it slots into gear but it was like being in neutral). I have checked the fuses under the bonnet. Are there fuses under the dash I could check or should I arrange to sell my granny to get the cash for a gearbox rebuild?

 

I will do an auto trans diagnostic when I get back home tonight.

 

Driving my Mum's Peugeot 205 diesel to work today really rubbed salt into my wounds :(

 

 

I'm sorry to say this, but I think you'll need to prepare for the worst.

The early automatics don't have proper cooling for the auto-gearbox and since your

problem occured after a long drive (and probably during the hot weather of the last few days), I think your tranny became overheated.

You could have the gearbox flushed and put in new oil (this is quite expensive though) and hope nothing was damaged, but the metal on metal sound is never a good sign..

During the flush of the oil you can probably see if your gearbox is shot (thick black stuff and metal pieces in the oil is a very bad sign)

 

Hope it isn't though..

 

-Eric

 

Oh dear sound bad,I have recent experience of this on a mates car.Almost the same symtoms if u do an auto box test as in the manual and the code for the speed sensor pops up its confirmed a dead box , this is because metal bits are stuck to the sensor, after much price checking we found a second hand box and torque convertor for £650 at a breakers and a local auto box specalist changed over the boxes and flushed out the cooler and pipes for £250 sorry Jeff TT

 

cant help much with the problem, sorry, but if you look in the for sale/wanted section, i think Coogs is selling an auto box and cooler... in case you need one

 

I've just phoned the garage I bought the car from and they told me the gearbox was "fixed" only 6 months ago because the reverse gear didn't work. The work is still under warranty so they will lend me a courtesy car and get it fixed for me.

 

Woo-hoo, my grannies can both stay buried

 

 

Thats good you can get it done under warranty. Are they gonna cover the whole cost or will u have to pay a certain amount?

When my auto box blew the warranty covered a grand and left me to pay £3500!!

Trev.

 

As the symptom I have is exactly the same as what they claimed to have fixed the last time I don't see why I should pay anything.

There again, I trust garages about as far as I can throw them.

 

Owned a ZX for 27 days now, it's been driveable for 4.5 of those days. They were *GOOD* days though :)

 

 

 

...welcome to the world of Z ownership my friend! Bet you wish you'd taken the blue pill now eh? LOL!

 

Tim

;-)

 

1991 UK 300ZX TT Auto. Current Status: M.I.A.

1987 Mercedes 190E 2.3-16v Cosworth Auto. Current Status: Operational