Hello all,

I bought an 04 1.8T A4 with CVT about a year ago and have since read a lot about issues with this transmission. Having never driven a CVT before, I don't know what to expect as normal vs abnormal.

For example, since the day I bought the car with 58K miles on it, when I come to a stop and then start to accelerate again, it behaves like a manual transmission that takes a second or two to fully engage the clutch, and if I accelerate too hard right away, it shakes the car a little before engaging and spinning the tires. Is this normal for a CVT or should I be concerned?

Also, when I am cruising anywhere from 40 - 80mph at a constant speed, I recently noticed that the engine will accelerate by 250 RPMs for just about a second and then it will drop back down to the RPMs it was running before, sort of like a burst or a lunge. I feel a slight bit of acceleration in the car when it does these "jumps" (for lack of a better word), so it is not like the transmission is slipping and causing the RPM jump. I think it may have done this before and I just didn't notice it because it is suttle. So I shifted the car to manual mode and put it in 5th gear rather than 6th, and it continued to do the same thing (of course at higher RMPs). I haven't noticed it in lower gears. Should I be concerned or is this normal?

Thanks all!

Matt

 

Couple more data points. Going around 45mph on a flat and level road with tac around 1.7K RPMs, the RPMs "jump" approximately every 5 secs -- it is very repeatable. Also, it only happens on flat or incline roads. On a decline, even if it is only a slight decline and the car is not accelerating due to gravity (i.e., the engine is still pulling the car), it doesn't have the jump in RPMs/accel.

Any thoughts or experiences you have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt

 

The RPM "bump" is mentioned in a TSB CVT repair at audi. I believe there is a problem with the transmission input shaft that needs to be "flipped" or the clutch pack has to be replaced. Either way, you can be sure the repair won't be cheap, and its NOT normal for it to do that. If you don't have the loot to repair it i would just drive on it like that until it completely fails, or buy a aftermaket warranty now that will cover the transmission when it fails. Because its gonna go out here in the next few thousand miles. Now that you know whats gonna happen, it could save you around $5,000.

 

Thank you Auditech79! From what you know about these CVTs, are they going to be brittle/error prone even after a rebuild or are there just a few bad components that have since been redesigned for longer life?

I read in another forum recently (lost the link) where someone mentioned they were having their B6 CVT rebuilt with some aftermarket or redesigned components that should make the tranny more reliable/tougher. Have you heard of any such thing?

Thanks again!

Matt

 

Yes, the older CVT's have a 6 plate clutch pack design, one of the fixes per audi TSB is to remove it and replace it with the upgraded 7 plate clutch pack. It really depends on what the exact problem is, there is about 5-6 different TSB's for the B6 CVT. All of them have different fixes, so the dealer would have to diagnose it unfortunately. 75% of them are serious problems though, thats why i would get an extended warranty or aftermarket warranty.