Gearbox Life

Hi

I have a Audi A3 1.6 Sport (5sp man) with a gearbox problem. I have a hole in the casing caused by something inside the box, not external damage... Any ideas on how long a box should last ?

Cheers, Haydn

In this context, "forever".

Might need new gears every so often (they wear), but an explosive event is.. erm.. kinda rare.

I've only ever seen failure due to a lack of oil in the 'box, although it's always /possible/ that something could break on its own with such violence. Have you /seen/ how thick the average casing is..?

Since I see no replies, I'll tell give you the general picture. Manual gearboxes -especially of German cars like Audis- should and do last for a lifetime. Nearly 1 million kilometers without anyone touching it is an exception but happens -this was an Audi 100 Avant of '89.

But shit happens. You can torture the gearbox yourself revving 6500 and driving 200 Km/h and switching to second f.e. Also there can be made a manufacturing fault which happens a lot in newer cars and is the main cause of problems on Audis. The design of all parts is very good but third parties can produce low quality sometimes.

If a hole is made from the inside or outside is hard to tell IMO. But if you say so, a part(icle) must be missing in there.

Ronald

Is the Audi A3 1600 a manual? All manual gearboxes i have ever known from multiple makers can take a huge amount of abuse and but they do also wear. Most problems relate to teeth on the synchromesh gears and the bearing arrangements for components such as layshafts etc. Why an A3 has blown a hole through its casing i hate to think of but i certainly would love to know. Any pictures? Must have been something very catastrophic.

In the situation of the '89 100 Avant, i gather it is an automatic so will have the the 087 series transaxle and we all know about that piece of engineering brilliance.... I am currently rebuilding one of these messes from a 1989 100 2.2 EE Sedan after the pinion transmission-end bearing grenaded and the driver continued to use the car.!The pinion and crownwheel chewed their teeth off . Eventually it wouldn't shift up out of 1st and i found the centrifugal valves and weights off the smashed governor (which had NO teeth) all the way back in the trans oil pan. The car had done

130,000miles. Take a look at:

Thanks for your thoughts so far, I've not actually seen the casing, but I'm told the hole was made from the inside out. The head machanic at my dealer has been looking into the problem and came up with the diaognosis. I do drive my car, i.e. I do rev it, but not excessively, I feel the red line is there to be approached at times, but reved up to all the time.

As for the car, the 1600, is the base engine in the UK model range,

103bhp i think, the car is a 5sp manual, with a Sport spec, which I understand means lower and firmer suspension, (I recall but I'm not 100% sure, a shorter throw gearbox), a sports steering wheel and sports seats. I test drove the SE spec, which is the luxo one for all you non UK residents and it felt soft and sloopy in my opinion, the sport spec was better.

The car is serviced every 10,000 miles at a well respected UK dealer, the car has everything is ever needed and I'm damn annoyed that the box failed at 90,000 miles or four years of age. I'd say the mileage is mixed, with maybe 50% on motorways at high speed, and the other 50% a mix of motorway queues, city driving and medium to high speed county roads (40-60mph).

The catostrophic news is that a new gearbox will cost me £1370, plus another £180 for a clutch which is contaminated by the gearbox fluid all on top of my cambelt which I have just discovered should be changed at 80k not 90k as the car booklet tells me and a 90k service that was due this week... I will be about £2000 down by the end of the week.

Any nice person out there who wants to help me ! LOL

I recall from the back of my mind the story of the self-machining gearboxes in VWs of this era. IIRC, it was the gear for 5th speed that was pressed onto the shaft. The axial force on it (due to the spiral cut gears) would force it down the shaft whence it would start machining the gearbox case. I believe the problem was solved with a circlip in a groove on the shaft.

Don Borowski