as one to have been in the car business for the past 5 years (salesman, lot manager, small-time exporter, financing broker agent and now an newbie dot-commer) I thought I was completely devoid of any major mechanical problems as far as my cars are concerned. Anything that has ever happened to any of my cars to date was so minor that it was fixed within the confines of our small used lux-car lot on Long Island (20 minute drive from my home in Brooklyn in normal traffic)... That fantasy has died on Saturday morning. Here's my reality now:

My tranny is in limp mode: the gear indicator is lit up, the car does not shift gears, I am immobilized, unless mobility means to drive 30 mph on the local streets. How did I (who was seemingly invincible in any winter conditions in my '01 A6 2.7T QUATTRO) manage to get my baby this f&$@#d up? It was actually pretty easy - all I had to do is burry the car's bottom in about a foot of snow. To better illustrate the story, I should mention again that it took place in brooklyn, where parking becomes a rather major concern when you're trying to get home at 6AM on a Saturday with several people in various stages of various types of intoxication packed in the vehicle of choice. This time, just as it happened so many times before - I don't drink and my car goes in snow and ice - I was the design-gn-gnated driver. The car was awesome the whole night - never even a hint of losing traction, I was having so much fun tossing the car around the more or less abbandoned Brooklyn streets, powersliding, making full use of the handbrake, the quattro and the ice hidden under the snow, which goes great with double-gasing through a turn rally-style. I should add that 95% of the time, I drive like a grandma. This night (as it is often the case with me in a winter storm) was however the other 5%...
I drove around all day and the entire night, as the tri-state area and most of the northeast was having a "WINTER STORM", often laughing at various FXs and RXs that were stuck and could not get out. Drove right past them feeling smug that my Audi has no issues of such sort. I should have known and I actually did know that this will inevitably lead to overconfidence. As it did. After a very "relaxing" night out of visiting several of the more illustrious areas of Brooklyn, me and three of my friends (my roomie, my friend who lives in the next building from us and his roomie) were ready to head home to hit the pillows. We piled into the car yet again, yours truly behind the wheel for the aforementioned reasons, and headed home. Upon arriving to our block, it was evident that parking was "unavailable", unless we wanted to take a cab back home after we park. So I drove around the block a few times only to learn that the only parking spot available that did not require a JetBlue flight back to my house was one that was covered with approximately a foot of wet snow. At first I passed it (which in retrospect was the smart thing to do), but after a few more passes around the block, it dawned on me: "I can do it, damn it!". I lined the car up and backed into the snowy abyss. The car went several feet into the parking spot and stopped when traction became unavailable. This was not news to me, because every single time this has ever happened to me before, I simply drove out of the spot and backed back into it with more power and all was well. This time, after doing so once or twice, my car sunk into the foot of snow that covered that spot and the transmission went into the limp mode. I had to call the tow truck to get it out of the snow (which coincidentally must be a great business, because it cost $65 big ones to move the vehicle 6 feet). To no surprise of mine, no self-respecting mechanic would make himself available on a Saturday (though I did try several), so now I'm stuck. I had only one productive talk about my car's condition with the guy who I will refer to as "THE CAR GUY" and he informed (or mis-informed - I'm yet to find that out) that my car's tranny most likely took some water. No more specifics were given to me and the general attitude I gathered was "Good luck, buddy!".
I've read through the forums, since I could not really drive anywhere anyway, over the past 48hours or so and have seen stories about people fixing the limp mode by replacing AFS's and some other tricks, but I remain convinced that such a fix would yeild absolutely no results for me at this junction. So my question is: WHAT DO I DO? And FYI: I don't go to Audi dealers unless I need parts.

PS My instinctive reaction was to take a 3-4 thousand dollar hit and off the car at a dealer auction for whatever I can get for it and get a Toyota 4Runner, but I don't give up easily. Plus, I don't have the 4 grand to spare with dot com start up being in a stage where every penny I make has to go toward the advertising dollars. In the meantime, without my Audi, I'm lost. I love it and I'm definitely keeping it through this set back. I just don't know what to do with it to make it run normal again. My best friend, who gets is kicks from a 6speed Ultra Sport A4 1.8t told me once that the biggest mistake I made with my car was to buy a tiptronic. I did not admit to it before (out of pride mostly), but now, I have been humbled and have to say: had I had a stick shift, this problem would have never happened...

 

UPDATE
As the snow melted on Monday morning, yours truly, after pullinga graveyard shift, drove to a much-acclaimed local master of German metal to get his horse treated for the above injuries...
Thrity five dollars later, including the tip, my baby was back up and running after the tranny was reset. Though a new problem manifested itself. When the car was up on the lift I noticed transmission fluid leakage (minor, I was assured) and soon after I realized that the reverse gear kicks slightly and delays when engaging for about 5 seconds. And after a lengthy drive, there's a smell comming from the car that I hesitate to even describe. Maybe its the clutch smelling or the gearbox. One way or the other, I will soon be draining my tranny and will make sure that the shop runs another diagnostic on it.

 

glad things turned out okay for you. definitely could have been much worse i suppose. be ready for a salty bill to change the transmission fluid. the transmission takes 8 quarts total, at about $18 a quart. filter and new gasket is about $40. all that's not all that bad, but if a dealership does it for you, tack on another $200-$300 or so for labor. i've been reading up on the process since i've been thinking of changing mine. it's pretty extensive and requires some pretty specific things, such as the car has to be running and the transmission fluid has to be exactly between 30-45*C to get the fluid level right. definitely a two-person job to say the least because you have about a 15 minute window to get everything set to the correct level and closed up.

 

thanks 'stang! I'm probably going to take the car to a tranny shop to get it flushed - I don't have the tool to flush it. And from what I was told, I need it to hook it up to the bottom of the tranny and drain the old fluid.

By the way, when I lifted my car up after the "incident", I saw some transmission fluid leaking from the seal on the tranny. I was told not to worry about that and just go and get it flushed, because these trannies leak a bit. But the more I think about it, the more it worries me...

 

well if anything, hopefully when they flush the tranny fluid and put the new gasket in, that should stop the leak. i'm pretty sure my tip doesn't leak at all, so you def might wana get that looked at if it gets any worse or doesn't go away after the change the gasket. yeah, they probably have some sort of tool that they hook up to the bottom of the car that actually sucks the rest of the fluid out because i think only about 2/3 of the fluid actually sits in the pan at any given time. oh well, hopefully it won't be anything major, so good luck.

 

Get the fluid changed, it might be the trans cooler leaking, or maybe you hit the trans pan and it's leaking.

I would get it checked out ASAP, to make sure you loose the whole trans.

Flushing the trans isn't that hard, but does take some time & is a little messy. I put Redline D4 ATF in mine, it's better fluid, and half the price of the Audi stuff.