Zakowsky

Maybe I actually own a rebranded Touareg lol! So on closer inspection of it I do in fact have a real VW gasket as well, 09D-321-371. The gasket looks perfectly fine; it’s hard to tell for sure of course but when I took it off it did seem like there was dirt on the transmission mating side inside the ridges, and the pan side was wet with ATF all the way to the outside. But if it is fine, how could I loose 3-4 litres of ATF? Bolt torque is really that important I suppose. Two were finger tight only, two had low torque, but the rest were OK. This makes me worry the torque converter seal is also gone. The ATF was amber btw. I think the best thing to do now is clean the gasket up, reinstall, torque properly, clean everything and watch for fresh leaks. It probably took a month of driving to get this low, as everything was dry when I did the driveshaft support fix. That TransGo kit looks tricky but worth trying...but going to sort out the leak first then see how it is doing.

Thanks Lewis, Only got another litre out of the pan - wow it was low, surprised it even drove. It’s all apart, but will probably have to swap my wheels to get it off the ground enough to let the wheels turn. Going with the Toyota IV ATF at $8 per litre. My decision now is to wait 5-8 days for a Elring gasket for $12, or buy the Porsche one that is in stock today for $140. Our back up vehicles are not running so well, so might suck it up and get the Porsche one. Looking at the non-OEM one that was one there, I was not too impressed with the material. When there are metal grommets to keep us from over tightening it (which is good), you really have to trust the gasket manufacturer. Mine seemed very soft, and it seems like it wasn’t sealing at all on the pan side. My transmission pan says VW on it, but I don’t think that is a problem. Trying to talk myself into getting the Porsche one…

OK, a few questions - is the full volume of fluid supposed to come out of the T40 drain plug? Car is level, on jack stands and only about 4 liters came out. I know some more will come when I take off the pan, but not another 4-5 liters...do you have to run the engine to get it all out, or is it just that low (hard to believe) on fluid? Also, when filling, some say leaving it in neutral while running is OK, other say put it in reverse and drive for 5 seconds. The 22” wheels are just barely off the ground, I’d rather leave it in neutral, or will I get less in there that way? Maybe I should put the 20” wheels on for this. Thanks.

I wonder if they are coming out with a 2017 version soon; that is a good price.

Thanks guys; I need to get the beast back on the road, and the Porsche gasket is in stock here, so will have to weigh money ($140 here) versus time for that versus the non-ORM at a fraction of the price. Have to see the price of Toyota IV tomorrow versus the Castrol multi-import ATF that covers the same specs (on sale at Canadian Tire here). Car is on jack stands ready for work. I see the writing on the wall for the valve body. Bites because it was new just 4 years ago, when I bought it that was a plus point for me. I am tempted to pull it out while I am in there and see if there are any burrs on the 5-4 cylinders or gunk or anything serviceable. Haven’t seen anyone that has done this online though so maybe pointless. And I have to do a smoke test for leaks; there must be something somewhere I am not finding, especially with the small remaining dip in the RPM going to idle. Time to make a mess, will report back.

So it sounds like a pointless question, seeing as my non-OEM transmission pan gasket is probably leaking, but does everyone buy the Porsche OEM gasket and filter? Price difference aside, are the non-OEM ones really so bad as to fail in 4 years? Not completely surprised, but I am a bit. I’ve read all the AFT equivalence threads, and trying to match things up for that. But curious about the gaskets/filters, for future reference. Thanks. Edit - Just wanted to add about the AFT looking like coolant, I found out that there are some ATF fluids for this transmission (like Pentosin or original VW/Audi ATF) that are actually amber and not red. I guess that must be what they put in mine.

Thanks guys – I thought it was a funky color too, but it doesn’t smell or feel like coolant at all, just like ATF. I’m going to drain the transmission tomorrow, so I will see what is what then. The coolant thing does worry me a bit, because before I bought it, it did have a big coolant meltdown of the plastic pipes. They were all upgraded, but I have read sometimes the leak affects the torque converter seal. I don’t know how coolant could get in the transmission, but that would of course be bad... Going over the receipts, it had a new valve body put in 4 years ago; the valve body was a Porsche part but the gasket was aftermarket (maybe why it leaked?). For fluid they put in G-055-025-A2, which is the Audi/VW equivalent of Mobil 3309 I believe. In Canada things are often named slightly differently than the rest of the world, and I was going to use Castrol’s “Import Multi-Vehicle ATF” which is a bit different than the Transmax, but has the correct ratings in the list. I think... Tomorrow I will source out the gasket and filter, and keep my fingers crossed there is no permanent damage. Brainz, it sounds like your situation with the bad up shifts happening right at start up. This has been slowly getting worse since I bought it 6 months ago. And there must be a slight vacuum leak still somewhere (I have been searching for it for a while now...), because the idle still dips a little at lights. But up until a week ago the shifting was nowhere as bad as it is now. Glad yours got better with the top up, hope mine will too. As far as my valve body, it is fairly new and the only downshifting hammers I get are if I have been going fast for a long time and I slow down with PCM on; 5->4 can hammer bad. But if I shift manually or with PCM off it is OK. So we’ll see happens with that when the fluid is right. Now to try and get the parts to Canada without a 3 week wait!

So in my boost testing thread I mentioned that my transmission didn’t seem to be up to par these days, and yesterday it got much worse. When I would first accelerate after starting it at anything but really slow, it will stay in 2nd, rev high then slam into 4th. After doing that once it would behave if I kept the revs low, but after getting it home I just left it. Looking underneath I saw the whole transmission pan soaked in ATF. So after chatting with Lewis, I am hoping if it was the torque converter seal I would have more ATF up near the bell housing holes; they are a bit wet, but everything down there is: But the front of the pan has ATF on all the bolts, and the pan itself is dark with fluid (grey patch in the last picture is the only dry part). And I saw a drip actively come off the edge of the pan while I was under there. Plus one of the bolts was loose. And the parts around it were dry, so I really don’t think it was coming from the bell housing. Although with that said, there was AFT sprayed around the area just back from the holes, which is a bit ahead of the transmission pan. I hope it isn't both... I read on the fluids thread above that just a half liter down can affect your shifting. So any opinions on if I did damage to the tranny itself, or is the shifting problems just because of the low fluid? There doesn’t seem to be that much on the floor in the garage, and when I stop in a parking lot there isn’t any drips, so I can’t that much of the 8-9 liters being gone. I am worried about this because I just couldn’t afford a new transmission...thanks.

First, apologies for forgetting you can’t run any 0-60’s due to the torque converter leak Lewis. All I have to complain about is the endless snow here (it’s almost May, come on already). So it might be of interest to absolutely no one, but a few things are dawning on me here. First of all, Porsche published 0-60’s are around 5 secs, but other car mags of the day were reporting closer to 6, so mine is not off by that much. But two factors I didn’t consider. First, transmission shift times. Looking at the last graphs, 1-2 could take almost a second; now I am not used to automatic transmissions and just assumed they were horribly slow, but that seems awfully long. I tried a bit of manual shifting (hard to wind it out with the snow), and as I have noticed in the past, it seems almost worse. If you are not full throttle you get a relaxing 1.5 maybe even 2 second shift! PCM on or off doesn’t seem to make a difference. But WOT it seems you can get the same (1 sec) shift, but it is really hard to do, because if you leave PCM off and shift for 1-2 at 6000, it hits close to 8000 before it actually shifts. So is my transmission failing? It had a new valve body put in several years ago, and the endless threads on tranny problems all focus on hard shifting, which mine only does after long highway runs, going from 5-4 with PCM on. May I should flush it, see if that helps. But then the second thing I realized is I now have my summer tires on now, and I checked old shift times versus the new recordings, and could see shift times as low as 0.5 seconds. The computer could well be adjusting to the increase torque needed with the higher gear ratio caused by the tires size. And for the 0-60, my “small” rims are 20” for the winter, and I now have 22”, which over stock rims of as small as 18”, that could explain a lot. Could turn a 5.9 sec 0-60 into 7.2 secs. That old math thing again… Anyway the bright side of all this is while sealing up the Y-pipe to throttle body junction didn’t do anything for performance, the RPM dip at idle seems better.

Thanks Lewis, That explains the cut off in first...really wondered about that. The drop off during the run up in second and third is what I would really like to change, as you say it should be climbing not falling off. I will try short shifting and see if I can hold the boost that way. Combined with the speed recordings, I wonder which will produce the faster 0-60, boost or rpm? I still have to get used to the transmission though – this is literally the first automatic I’ve owned in my life – I still instinctively go for the clutch, then get all messed up and over rev. I also didn’t know at first that if you over rev in manual with the PCM off it lets you go really high...I hit like 8000. But I will play around with it. I was also trying to slip the torque converter, holding the brakes until at least 3000 but it doesn’t seem to work too well. I have some recordings of me blowing shifts...they are kind of amusing. I’m feeling this is a map issue rather than a leak these days. Wg actuators are OK, one squeaks a bit but works fine, the same as the other side anyways. Although maybe they are taking too long to close, but if that is the case I’m boned, because they are basically inaccessible. The MAP sensors are clean, as with the boost sensor etc. It’s like the map they put in is as crappy as the other work this tuning shop did to the car. But I don’t want to spend +1000$ on a new map if it is the same as what I have. It would be interesting to see your E81 curves – using the VAG-COM you just record from the instrument controller, channels 1 and 51. I wish I could get anywhere near the wastegates; I could at least douse them in WD40. And I am still tempted to spray something inside the actuators...and I want to add a resistor to the boost sensor and ramp down what is reported to the ECU. I'm just full of bad ideas!

All I can add is mine resets the comfort settings maybe once a month, keeps doing so for a few days then stops. Once however I went to start it and nothing, no crank. Turned it to the off position, then on and still nothing. Took the key out and tried again and it started. Freaked me out. But when I was reading about it it seems there were bugs in the 2004 code, and I just chocked it up to that. We still live in fear of the immobilizer however!

Thanks Thomas, thanks Lewis, It does takes a bit of pressure to open the valve and let pressure out, so I guess that must be enough to hold it in – I don’t see any oil coming out there so I guess it holds. But you mentioned the crankcase “vacuum” becoming pressurized; I never new it also becomes negatively pressurized. I thought it was always a PCV system. Interesting; the reason I am looking at any of this is the small line that runs off this hose and goes to the back (looks like into the manifold, maybe that is where the negative pressure comes from) is oily at the connectors, thought it might be leaking a bit. At any rate going to clamp those up just for good measure. Thanks.

Not just because I miss this thread, but Lewis or Thomas, do you know anything about this vent/valve here? I can suck air out of it but not into it. Since it is a crankcase vent, you would think it would be the other way around...thanks.

Hoping for some feedback from any turbo gurus who might see this, I think I don’t know enough about how the system works here... So I went over the intake side looking for leaks, specifically I was concerned the Y-pipe to throttle body o-ring was loose; there was noticeable play between the two. A bit of teflon tape and it was nice and snug, and here are some results: Turbo boost is in green (700 = 0.7 bar); RPM/10 in red. So basically no improvement was made by sealing up the connections better. But if you look at what is going on in detail it seems strange. Observations and questions: boost seems to start at around 2500 rpm – this is normal, correct? But look what happens in first gear when RPM gets to about 4500, boost stops at 0.55 bar and starts heading back down, until the transmission shifts at 6200, at which point the boost starts climbing again, all the way up to 0.7 bar, with the RPM still dropping because of the shift. This can’t be normal(?). If there was some function that shut the turbos down at 4500, that would explain why they shut down while the engine is still building RPM, but a second later boost builds all the way to 0.7 bar with the engine revving much higher. But it is always backwards; except for low RPMs, the boost builds as the engine slows down, and drops as the RPMs rise. Except once on the first graph, at the end of third gear where there is a quick peak and it holds boost through the gear. So here is a test of its ability to hold boost, going not too fast up a steep hill. Seems fine here, part throttle, and it holds a reasonable boost level as RPM slowly climbs. Which I know it does from towing uphill, it can keep high boost on for minutes under certain conditions. Btw, don’t trust you gauge too much, mine was reading 0.8 -> 0.75 when it was actually 0.7 -> 0.65. So the questions are, why does the boost go dramatically in the opposite direction to RPM in first and second over 4500? And why did it stop building in first, when it couldn’t be overboost, because it can hold at much higher levels under different conditions? Plus I never get overboost codes. The only thing I can think of is there are different pressure sensors that are being used by the ECU to make these decisions. If you look at the first recordings I did, where I wasn’t completely sure of the pressure sensor being tracked, boost pressure is shown to spike above 1.0 right at the start. The new recordings which show final, actual boost don’t have the spike, but the initial boost cut in first sort of happens at the same time. So is there a second sensor somewhere that doesn’t cause an overboost code, but dumps pressure, and you only get a code if the actual pressure goes over max? It would be interesting to hear from some turbo experts. And I really wish I could program the ECU curves myself!

Good to hear. Maybe fix the seal leak anyway...but before I speak too soon, I should check what those new drip spots are in my garage....

Hi Thomas, I kind of dropped off line due to some unfortunate life related events, but ready to get back into it, and this would be a good way to start! Since making the original graphs I have optimized my recordings, and I now have what should be final boost pressure versus rpm and speed. Here are two current runs I did. So speed in kms is in blue, rpm in red (divided by 10), and boost in green (eg 700 = 0.7 bar). The time scale on the bottom is in sample units, and works out to a somewhat disappointing 6.4 second 0-60mph time. Couple of things I am seeing, the boost levels are not as high as I saw when I first got the vehicle, just over 0.7 seems the max. Boost starts at about 2800 rpm, which I guess is normal, although a little earlier would be nicer, since it hasn’t even peaked when you shift out of first. It is also dropping after the peak a bit fast, down to 0.45 - 0.5 by redline (6200 rpm). Could shift higher but the tach is way off the actual it seems, as I thought I was well into the 7000 rpm range. So since there are no major or obvious leaks or malfunctions (and the boost holds well on long uphill climbs), I am thinking there might be some leaks at higher pressure at the places I have taken things apart and not used new gaskets on, like the throttle body to Y pipe, and the intercooler line where you drain the oil out of. Going to try sealing things and testing again, and hoping to get the boost back up closer to +0.8, dropping to 0.75 on shifts, and see if that can pull it closer to the 5 secs I’m hoping for. Btw it is a remapped ECU, although I have no info on the specifics.

Coming out of stasis for a minute as I can't take credit for inventing this (thanks though for the kind words Lewis) - it's called the Jimi Fix, there is a thread on Rennlist that covers the details. https://rennlist.com/forums/porsche-cayenne-forum/825226-cardan-shaft.html Very easy to do and with everything going on for me these days I actually forgot I have it in there…for several thousand kms now! Best of luck getting rolling again Doohan.

Just to add an end note to my saga; drove 7250 km through winter conditions and the windows stayed up snug and functioned when needed! Good thing it went out just before I left. I will do a proper cable replacement now. And for people that like drama, after towing a 5,000 lb. trailer admirably back across the country (3500 km), after unloading it and on the way to U-Haul to drop it off, the cardan shaft support bearing gave out. Had that happened in the middle of the Prairies I would have been so totally boned. Since my bearing wasn’t exactly perfect I cleaned it, repacked it and did the Jimi fix with 5/8” fuel line and zip ties for now. Seems more solid than the OEM system, and no problems so far.

OK. so mine is obviously the ghetto version, but I made them very tight, not quite as tight as possible but close. I couldn’t figure out how the end of the lowering cable fit in the attachment point on the window, so I had to just basically tie the cable around the whole block of plastic there (this is the bike cable, so no end stopper anyways). But I bolted the motor on and just tested it, and it actually works! It goes up and stays snug anyway, and the motor turns off and doesn’t keep running. I only lowered it a few inches, but it went back up fine. So now I’m leaving it closed and getting the same kit you have for when I get back. Thanks for your help and good luck.

Sort of progress - there is no way I can get the bars installed fast, so I grabbed a brake cable from a bicycle, replaced the broken one and I am trying to get it back together. Fortunately it is the down cable so not as much stress, I just tied it around the window attachment point. So basically doing the cable replacement as well. Question though - how tight should you make the cable? The box with the spool has two springs on the ends, do you compress them fully? I guess they are to take up cable stretch...thanks.

Thanks for the pictures, I think I am going to try the same today. I did manage to bend the steel panel away far enough to grab the broken cable, and I tied to a strut in the door. The window sags a little but it is possible that it would last the trip. I can't get just the cable today, but I did find the regulator assembly in town that includes the two bars; expensive but available. Since I can't fully see how the bars are mounted, does it look like they unbolt? The part I can see looks welded. I have to decide whether to try the proper repair, or to just go with the tied cable and do it when I come back. If I do get the panel off and I have the kit with the bars, is it fairly easy to replace? If I repair, I have to get the steel panel off. In this picture, I think what is keeping it in is where this bracket attached to the steel panel. Did yours have rivets there PK? Or maybe it is the bracket above. Mine looks different somehow. When I get the kit I can look how the cables are attached.

It was 3 am here and fell asleep. Thank for the info...back to it now.

I tried duct tape, but going over bumps it would just fall...there is no support for the window right now, and I have to drive for several days. Wedges are a good idea, but I am so close - I can see the cable where it came off, if I could just get this panel off I could clamp it up solid. I did find one other person online with the same problem, but there were no responses. Can't find this in parts diagrams either - what is it those to rivets hold? Maybe I should just drill them out and pay the consequences later...

Looking at it closer, it seems the lower two blue ones are attached to a plastic angle bracket thing that goes toward the outside and is keep the panel from coming off. Any ideas, please? I'm on the clock with this one. Thanks.

Old thread but relevant. Need some quick help here – I was supposed to leave on a really important trip this morning, but I rolled up the passenger window and heard a snap/grinding and now the window won’t even stay up. I just want to get it open so I can tie up the cable some how to keep it firmly closed, but I can’t get the **** inner black steel panel off. I took out all the bolts and the 4 big rivets along the top, plus two very small ones that tack it to the frame of the door on either side. But there is something holding it on in the area near where the door cable comes out. If I bend it out and look down I can just see some levers and such still attached to the steel plate. Its somewhere in the area in the picture – is mine different some how? Of the three blue arrows the top is a plastic clip but the others are rivets. Also there is an ominous looking rivet you can see down an access hole in red. If I drill these out I don’t think I will ever get it back together in time. Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Much appreciated. 2004 CTT.