My 97 A8 has 141k, I just purchased it. When driving at approx. 40 -45 mph, the tranny seems to go back and forth between 4th & 5th gear. I had the fluid level checked it is ok. Also the high beam headlights, (bulbs are ok.) are not working. Any ideas?

 

www.ross-tech.com purchase a vag com, scan the vehicle for fault codes and then we can proceed.

 

Where do I purchase one?

 

See post #2.

 

I used to own a '97 A8 - similar mileage on it, and it did the exact same thing. As long as the shifts aren't clunky, I wouldn't worry about it too much. That particularly annoying shift pattern is just how that years tranny was programmed. I used to just manually move the shifter down to (4) anytime I was cruising between 40-50 mph. There is a way to reset the transmission shift pattern back to default (it 'learns' your habits after a while), which helps ... for a while. At one point in time, I seriously considered doing the Tiptronic conversion, but ended up selling the car.

One other thing you may want to consider, is changing the transmission fluid. When I first got mine, it shifted fairly rough, and changing the fluid helped somewhat, although it did not completely eliminate the issue. Contrary to Audi's initial assessment of a maintenance free automatic transmission on the '97 A8, the fluid should be changed out periodically.

l8r)

 

Well if there are no problems with the transmission and it IS the programming, he could install a TIP chip from GIAC which will change the shift patterns to a performance setting similar to newer audi's S mode.

 

Thanks, I will change the fluid and see

 

I changed the fluid and filter, no codes present for engine & transmission, still shiftig the same, any ideas?

 

what about the chip?