XSeries-forum

Hi all,

Sorry if this topic has been covered already, but the wife's X5 has me at the end of my tether!

We had the gearbox rebuilt as the car was shifting pretty nastily, bumping both up and down the gears and in general not being the silky smooth operator it should be....

We had the box fully rebuilt, minus the valve body at a cost of £2750.....needless to say it didn't fix the problem!

So a valve body and £1250 lighter and it's still a bag of S*#t! Not long ago it just refused to pull away from a roundabout until the kick down was nudged and off it went.

Now we love the car, it's the 3.0d on a 55 plate, has most of the extras, only 74k on the clock etc so we don't want to get rid, however this problem is very annoying.

The specialist who carried out the work keeps telling me the car isn't driven enough and that it is still learning etc....the work was carried out over a year ago! I'm familiar with the spanners so I'm not daft!

I'm going to take it back and demand it be fixed, but can anyone give me some advice as to what the problem might be? The company is quite large and don't appear to be Cowboys as they're always busy, but it's almost as though they've put the wrong oil in the thing as its silky smooth pulling up hill, but very jerky at low speeds under low load.

For the record, the car doesn't tow and has never towed anything, it's totally immaculate hence not wanting to get rid.

Thanks in advance 

Hi

Sorry to hear your woes with the car esp after having it rebuilt, the others such as Horizon, X5 Sport and others will know more about the gearbox.

Here is a short link I found link which is worth reading and checking through what has been done with the company that rebuilt box to see if the torque converter was replaced/ refurbished at the same time as that would also be worn and could be causing probs 
http://xdrivers.co.uk/forum/index.php/t ... #msg141191

But either way I would star with getting the codes read from the car to check if any error messages relating to the gearbox to help indicate the problem, before spending any more.

I know X5's can suffer from a lurch at slow speeds which can be adjusted via software to alter the down change i.e. when it goes from 2nd to 1st, to reduce it, but it's specialist type work. Given the box was removed and reinstalled it the error codes could indicate some issue with the software settings.

Graeme

Four grand for a box rebuild and new solenoids... unless I am being daft here, but sorry to say you were robbed. I thought I paid enough compared to others but I went to the only team in the South West who were competent enough to deal with our boxes and I wanted it done properly. Your original bill would've been ok if they had done the job.

It doesn't take that long for the car to re-learn, thing is your warranty would've run out after 12 months so I am not sure what you can do now. Ok, it wasn't fixed but the thing is unless you can get them to admit that the installation was faulty then they could just fob you off.

There is a known condition with the Valve-Block.... that the valve pistons suffer from.
These pistons are approx 10mm x 20mm ish...
it's not ONLY a condition of X5 or BMW... but auto boxes generally.

The condition of a real big BANG / SHOCK thru the transmission on gear change up & down...
It can be reduced significantly by matching the revvs with road speed at the point when she changes gear AND accelerate GENTLY... also use the TipTronic manual shifter too.

Software issue or Piston Issue...
The Piston issue is that the rubber teats on the valve pistons in the valve block that act as a damper/buffer to smooth clutch engagement & gear change actions in the box... these teats are know to harden or become deformed FLAT on the pistons ... hence unable to operate smoothly.

Even though the box isn't working properly now it's been rebuilt, it is quite possible that the box has been rebuilt properly... and the valve Block is still at fault.

I have this issue with my D-Sport changing up from 1st to 2nd gear with a hell of a thud...
It is possible to smash a gear-box to pieces or burst the casing if you have no mechanical sympathy & just hit the throttle without care.

Sorry to hear that you are still having major problems with the gearbox,must admit as 'grumpywurzel' has mentioned that is alot of money and basically still no further forwards that when initially started having the problems.

The bottom line is that you have spent £4000 thus far and basically as it would be out of the 12 month warranty then they can and probably will walk away from honoring any form of responsibility and any warranty work.

You could ask them for some help and try and sort out the obvious problem that you are having,but dont hold your breath i am afraid,trading standards would have been your best bet within the 12 month period.

Thank you for the replys guys!

The box and valve body came with 2 year warranties so they will have to honour repair works.

I'm really pissed off if I'm honest because I am feeling a little fobbed off. I used the company because not only are they local, but they are registered by ZF to work on their transmissions...

I'm away from home at the moment, but I'll call them and get the Mrs to take the car down...

As far as I know the torque converter was refurbished, I know this because they said most of the waiting around would be for the torque converter coming back. The repair work was for a complete rebuild, with torque converter and we later had the valve body replaced.

Really glad to hear that it came with a 2 year warranty,so at least one has a very good chance of getting the problem sorted out.Keep us in the loop as they say with any new updates 

Repairs on my E53 were over £4k several years back, so that figure sounds about right.....but only for a top of the line full strip and build including all new ZF parts and a brand new Mechatronics Unit.  BMW were quoting almost £7k at that time.

The first box mine had was the rebuilt original and was completely replaced within 3-months as it was no good - poor shifting like yours.  Use the warranty and get the box changed.

Glad you got a 2 year warranty, get the buggers to sort it!