Trans issues
 

So i have a 98 a4 with the 1.8t motor and 5 speed tiptronic trans when i got the car a week ago the cruise and brights werent working so after a little reading i deceided to replace the cruise/highbeam arm so i picked one up from the pick n pull and disconnected the battery and replaced it and that made things worse so i swapped back to the original one went for a ride and now the car wont go into o/d tiptronic doesnt work and it doesnt matter what gear i put it in it shifts up to 4th the same even if i put it in second. i then pulled the cruise control module out and resoldered the caps and the cruise is working but trans still isnt acting properly. it was working just fine before i disconnected the battery and now no o/d, tiptronic and it doesnt care what gear its in it will shift to 4th no matter what plus no gear selection coming up on the lcd display on the gauges. i tried the tcu reset procedure but that did absolutely nothing. anybody have any ideas? or am i looking at a new tcu? any help is appreciated

also if it is a tcm problem what all cars will the tcm work from?

nobody has an idea of what could cause this?

couple other notes is that the car downshifts to 1st pretty hard and the lights around the shifter are all working like if you put it in tiptronic mode the + and - both light up and if i put it in d 4 3 or 2 the proper light lights up for each but no display on the lcd panel. im thinking it might be either the transmission range sensor any thought on this? also no check engine codes

i cant believe nobody has any input on this....

still no input on if the this is the transmission range sensor? tcm? or something else?

116 views and not a single comment............

Wow. I can't believe no one has commented on this. It sounds like you're in limp mode. Look at the center of the dash where the little LCD screen shows what gear you are in. If it has every gear lit up or none of the gears lit up, you're in limp mode. The car will only use one gear and tiptronic won't work at all. There are lots of threads on here about it and what people have found that fixed it. It could be low transmission fluid, a bad transmission multifunction switch (I think this is what you're calling a transmission range sensor), a bad TCM, and I'm sure there is something else I'm not remembering. Luckily, it seems that it's almost never the TCM. Unless you have water leaking on your passenger front floor and it has soaked the TCM. If you can get a hold of a vag-com and scan your car, that will be the most help to you. You will need to at least find someone who has one anyway because if you fix the problem, you'll never know until you clear the codes with vag-com. Even if you fix it, the car won't come out of limp mode until you clear the codes. Do a search and you will find a ton of information about transmission problems like you described. If this just happened for no apparent reason, you might get lucky and clearing the codes could possibly be all it needs.

here is a tip lose the auto sludge box go stick they are just a pain.
its going to be a sensor or transmission electrical like usual.. get a hold a manual that book well tell you everything its only $15 -_-
and i guess 116 ppl have stick shift. lol

Im hoping for something easy as it was working fine and then I disconnected tthe battery to pull the airbag and when I reconnected this issue was there. Is there any other way to clear codes other than vag com? I have a normal scanner and it came up with nothing. I read on some other posts but they all said the prnd lights were flashing mine are not lit at all. I guess ill look into buying a vag com where is the cheapest place to buy one? Thanks for the reply.