Attention DCT owners, big problem?

[Havocsteve]

Originally Posted by tock172

Bumping an old thread.

The parts for my DCT leak finally arrived last week. My car is in for the repair today. I can confirm that they will reuse your old fluid unless you specify and pay $200 + tax for fresh fluid. Additionally, I wanted to have the filter replaced as well. That's costing me another $215.

So fluid + filter is over $400? I think You can buy fuild and filter on ebay for less LOL

[tock172]

Originally Posted by captain slowly

how many miles on yours?

39k.

Originally Posted by Havocsteve

So fluid + filter is over $400? I think You can buy fuild and filter on ebay for less LOL

Yeah, duh. But when the dealer is the one who has your transmission taken apart, you're paying their price.

I priced out the parts on my preferred online BMW parts vender. I was charged a 54% and 88% premium above my cost for the fluid and filter respectively. Not a big deal, as I'm just glad to have the service complete. My expense is a drop in the bucket in relation to the $10k transmission.

[MONEY]

Does anyone know if there is a way to know if the mechatronic sleeve is leaking before pulling out the transmission?

[Happy Jose]

Originally Posted by MONEY

Does anyone know if there is a way to know if the mechatronic sleeve is leaking before pulling out the transmission?

Stick your nose underneath the transmission and see if you get any oil drops on your snozz!

[dtla1]

Originally Posted by quicksilver3121

I had BMW replace the pan and mechatronics gasket... outside of warranty :-(.

It was $1150 I believe, they did not have to remove the trans to get the mechatronics sleeve out though.

Just to add to an old thread. Recently had an Indy quote me about this price to replace the two filters, pan and gaskets as well as do a fluid flush. Just FYI. Not sure if they were trying to rob me out not. This is a "well known" BMW specific Indy shop in the area.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by dtla1

Just to add to an old thread. Recently had an Indy quote me about this price to replace the two filters, pan and gaskets as well as do a fluid flush. Just FYI. Not sure if they were trying to rob me out not. This is a "well known" BMW specific Indy shop in the area.

I thought about having this done (was getting closer to 50k miles) but then decided to sell. Never really looked in to it. Mind sharing what they quoted you?

PS - or were you saying they quoted you about the same price?

[dtla1]

Originally Posted by Esteban

I thought about having this done (was getting closer to 50k miles) but then decided to sell. Never really looked in to it. Mind sharing what they quoted you?

It was quick over the phone, but it ended up being like $1,148 or something like that, basically almost the same as the comment I replied to.

Seems like I might have metal shavings in there, some of them blocking the magnetic reader for the temp sensor which is causing my trans overheat warning.

The bigger question which I haven't been able to find good threads for is what is the metal flaking off from? Must be the actual gears of the trans, but it's not like I'm making big power or anything in this car.

The only other thing I can imagine is my tendency to put the car in reverse quickly (too early) while I'm about to back into a parking spot. Sometimes I put the command for reverse into the selector before I come to a complete stop. I would think the electronics in the car would be smart enough to wait for the gears to stop spinning before actually selecting reverse though to prevent damage?

IDK anymore.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by dtla1

It was quick over the phone, but it ended up being like $1,148 or something like that, basically almost the same as the comment I replied to.

Seems like I might have metal shavings in there, some of them blocking the magnetic reader for the temp sensor which is causing my trans overheat warning.

The bigger question which I haven't been able to find good threads for is what is the metal flaking off from? Must be the actual gears of the trans, but it's not like I'm making big power or anything in this car.

The only other thing I can imagine is my tendency to put the car in reverse quickly (too early) while I'm about to back into a parking spot. Sometimes I put the command for reverse into the selector before I come to a complete stop. I would think the electronics in the car would be smart enough to wait for the gears to stop spinning before actually selecting reverse though to prevent damage?

IDK anymore.

I would put the car in reverse before coming to a complete stop (foot on brake and barely moving) as well, on occasion. I don't think it did any harm.

[dtla1]

Originally Posted by Esteban

I would put the car in reverse before coming to a complete stop (foot on brake and barely moving) as well, on occasion. I don't think it did any harm.

Then I have no clue where the metal shards would be coming from. Unless the gears in this thing are made from soft aluminum.

[zx10guy]

Had a friend help me do a partial fluid service on my DCT. Didn't drop the pan so didn't change the internal filter. Did change the one you can access from the side of the trans. From what he told me, the trans has to be dropped a little to get he clearance necessary to R&R the side filter. So that will account for some of the cost in labor. The trans fluid is also a bit pricey which account for the high estimate. And the time spent to run the engine and check trans fluid temperature to ensure the trans has the proper fluid level. The fill procedure is to ensure the trans is in a certain temperature range. This will also add time and labor.

With all of the above, I opted to just have a pro do it with access to a lift and the required scan tool. Because the other complication is that the car has to be level too.

[dtla1]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Had a friend help me do a partial fluid service on my DCT. Didn't drop the pan so didn't change the internal filter. Did change the one you can access from the side of the trans. From what he told me, the trans has to be dropped a little to get he clearance necessary to R&R the side filter. So that will account for some of the cost in labor. The trans fluid is also a bit pricey which account for the high estimate. And the time spent to run the engine and check trans fluid temperature to ensure the trans has the proper fluid level. The fill procedure is to ensure the trans is in a certain temperature range. This will also add time and labor.

With all of the above, I opted to just have a pro do it with access to a lift and the required scan tool. Because the other complication is that the car has to be level too.

Very True.

You can see ECS sells the service kit for about $500, add in aa few hours to dissasemble covers to get to everything. Remove brace (i think) to tilt trans down. Remove and replace both pan/cover and filters. Start to re-fill. Go trough software program to finish fill (like you mentioned), button everything up.

Honestly the price is about right after I broke it down, just wanted people to be aware.

And for anyone that reads this thread, I think the cause of my "overheating transmission warning" I keep getting might be metal flakes building up on my rpm/temp sensor (i think it's a magnetic hall effect sensor), and causing the error. The real root cause of where the flakes are coming from are still a mystery, and might always be. One of my theories is a failing bearing in the oil pump assembly (see ssp replacement brash bushing, I can't find on their website now but there are a couple posts on other forums), but other than that, maybe actual gear wear inside the trans?

Who knows.

[lemansblau135is]

Is there a way to do an fluid analysis like blackstone maybe?

[Windy5000]

This would be a nightmare repair bill, gonna have this checked out by my Indy.

[dtla1]

Originally Posted by lemansblau135is

Is there a way to do an fluid analysis like blackstone maybe?

I'm sure you could, and I probably will have them pull an actual sample for analysis at some point. The little bit they pulled to check mine had a considerable amount of flakes in a pretty small sample size.