At the end of my tether with VW - advice please!

[beabea]

hi everyone, i hope you can maybe help advise a girl in need!

i have an 06 vw golf 1.6 auto, fsi model. it had to have a completely new engine put in by vw recently (long story & best forgotten!) and before it went in to have this done, i'd had no problems with the automatic gearbox whatsoever.

since i collected the car, the gears have started jolting after about 6 miles of driving, mainly in the changes from 1-2, 2-1 & when i move from park into drive, or drive into reverse & back. the further miles i drive, the worse the jolting gets & it almost feels like the jolt you get when you stall in a manual car.

i've complained to vw but they say that as the gearbox is a sealed unit & it just slots in to the engine, there is no way they could have caused this problem when they put the new engine in. they are also saying i need a completely new gearbox as they don't know what is causing the problems! apparently as the gearbox is sealed they can't diagnose the exact problem or repair it. sounds a bit dodgy to me...

i know nothing about cars, but i do know i had no gearbox problems before they worked on the car.

do you think it is really just a mig coincidence that the gearbox has gone while it was in the vw garage, which is what they are suggesting? the car has full vw service history + it is only 4 years old & done 50k so i can't see how a gearbox can be shot to pieces at this stage anyway?!

any advice appreciated :?

[martin1810]

Has the dealer scanned the engine and gearbox for any possible fault codes. The gearbox relies on sensors that are part of the engine control so to claim that an engine change can't cause problems is not correct. Try another dealer and explain what has happened.

[marcy1]

have changed my username... thank you, that's interesting as vw told me that because the gearbox is a sealed unit, they can't do a fault scan as any problem with the gearbox is inside it & therefore not identifiable!!

[gtiantichav]

Sounds like the garage has missed something? With both the engine and gearbox having so many sensors around them it probably takes only one sensor to have a fault to cause a problem.

I would argue that the gearbox was working fine before they took the car and that they should not dismiss their responsibility to look in to it given the fact they have just done major work to the car.
I have heard the DSG gearboxes in America had lots of problems and that they now get a ten year 100,000 mile warranty. Maybe if you search some of the forums you might find someone with a simular problem that managed to get it fixed?