Transmisison Problem

[Danos]

Hi guys,

Just to share an experience I had this morning which eventuated in my car now in the possesion of Toyota to repair (thankfully under warranty).

Have had no problems with the car/transmission to date which had done just over 45,000kms. Today driving down a freeway I slowed to a stop from 110km/h due to traffic. When I attempted to start again there was a clunk and the engine just reved as though in neutral. I tried shifting to 'P' and back to 'D' - no luck. Tried 'R' . . nothing.

This went with no warning and there was no hard driving at all - I'll keep you posted to the eventual outcome, but I'm a little pi$$ed at Toyota as they offer no courtesy car or anything and simply said "We'll let you know how things go, it should take about a week" . . . which I took as "we don't know what the f is wrong and in about a weeks time it will be christmas so don't expect us to do anything before the new year"

Has anyone had a similar thing happen ?

Cheers,

D

[ELEGNT]

thats so slack of toyota!! i would have said if i dont see my car within that week i want a courtesy vehical otherwise they willl just take there sweet time...good luck with it anyway mate

[dave262]

wow that sounds rather catastrophic... especially after only 45,000km! Did they give any indication of the cause?

I've had that same clunk before too, but at a slower speed (like 60km/h) - but it only revved in neutral for about 3 seconds before recovering. Never happened since. I swear there is something not right about the software that runs that transmission, regardless of whether Toyota says it is "by design", so I wouldn't be surprised if it's a result of dodgy TCU code causing these sort of mechanical failures!

Complain to them about getting a courtesy car too. They can't expect to take away your car for a whole week with an "unknown" problem, and expect you to make do with nothing! At least provide you with a cabcharge for the week!

[levinboy]

You should go back and ask for a courtesy car, as a fault like this shouldnt happen to the car with only 45 000 on the clock.

They may give you a TRD Aurion

[LEGEND888]

thats not good enough toyota! seriously... can we claim this through ACCC? i dunno ey... it just doesnt sound right... something is wrong. plus not only you having the same problem, alot of people having the same problem. which means its a factory fault... toyota should pull all the product back and fix/ replace it behehehheheh :)

dont u love that? :D

[BONDIE]

Mate, i had a fairly new explorer that did the same thing around the 50,000 km mark. (Hence the name exploder). It started off as nothing, every now and then it would do a little clunk like you explained. Then i went and flushed the transmission. Thinking this would help. But it freed everything up, and then it started to act like it was in neutral every now and then. I would stop at the lights and go to take off and it would just rev, a bit of delay and then kick in. Finally it started to become more frequent.

So i had a transmission bloke look at it and when he opened it up, it was rooted. And I was just out of warranty, so ford wouldnt fix the bill. Ford quoted me 11000 dollars to fix it. I found another transmission bloke and got it reconed for 5k.

I found out the guy that had the car before me constantly towed a trailer, and use to give it some stick.

You problem sounds very familar. Is it still under service. If not, with a outside coy,(so it doesnt go on the toyota file) have a transmission bloke have a look at it and if he can tell your transmission is going. If it is get some thick transmission oil, (quick cover up for the trade in evaluation) and trade it in asap, upgrade and give it back to the dealer to deal with. You might unfortunately have received the lemon out of thousands produced. (hopefully not)

If you have already taken it to toyota, and you want to trade it in, trade it in with another car coy, so they cant see you service details.

Another problem is, if they have recently flushed the transmission, (I dont know if you have just had it done) but if they didnt do it properly and have left air in there, it can cause the transmisson to act in this very way.

This is just what i have experienced with transmissions,

Hopefully its nothing

Good luck dude.

Bondie.

Edited December 16, 2008 by BONDIE

[Danos]

Yeah - thanks guys. I'm not giving up on the loan car. Will be contacting Toyota HQ today and writing a nice letter.

Apparently there is a major transmission services at 45,000km which was done 2 weeks ago. My thoughts are that the service bloke has stuffed the service either by leaving air in the system or something else. It's already with Toyota, I'm just hoping that it's completely stuffed and they replace it. It's a Nov 2006 build so Dec 2008 is still under the factory warranty. I bought the car with 20,000kms on it and it's been serviced with Toyota through out it's life so far. Nothing there that I can see to void the warranty.

Will keep you posted

[maso_01993]

when i was in melbourne, i stared the car in the morning and put it in reverse to go out of the garage and it made a loud clunk noise. it has done 37,000km's.

it was the first time it has happened. i think it might have been becasue the engine was just started and i tried to drive it straight away. has anyone had this

problem before?. does anyone know what it is?

[nathanb]

Yeah - thanks guys. I'm not giving up on the loan car. Will be contacting Toyota HQ today and writing a nice letter.

Apparently there is a major transmission services at 45,000km which was done 2 weeks ago. My thoughts are that the service bloke has stuffed the service either by leaving air in the system or something else. It's already with Toyota, I'm just hoping that it's completely stuffed and they replace it. It's a Nov 2006 build so Dec 2008 is still under the factory warranty. I bought the car with 20,000kms on it and it's been serviced with Toyota through out it's life so far. Nothing there that I can see to void the warranty.

Will keep you posted

Hi,

not sure if this is correct but my understanding was that the transmission is sealed for life from the factory and does not require servicing or fluid replacement like older camrys.

[Sera30]

Yeah - thanks guys. I'm not giving up on the loan car. Will be contacting Toyota HQ today and writing a nice letter.

Apparently there is a major transmission services at 45,000km which was done 2 weeks ago. My thoughts are that the service bloke has stuffed the service either by leaving air in the system or something else. It's already with Toyota, I'm just hoping that it's completely stuffed and they replace it. It's a Nov 2006 build so Dec 2008 is still under the factory warranty. I bought the car with 20,000kms on it and it's been serviced with Toyota through out it's life so far. Nothing there that I can see to void the warranty.

Will keep you posted

i reckon we should all email a letter to toyota HQ and let them know that when things like this happen we all find out through this forum and they'll have alot of unhappy customers not just one

I shutter to think "This could happen to me."

[Pumped]

2 cars ago i had a Nissan Maxima

about 3 weeks out of warranty i was driving along in D

and the car made a clunk noise and started free revving alot

to do 60km/h it was on about 6,000 rpm

had an ordeal with that, couldnt get warranty cover and had massive issues with nissan

ended up replacing it with a 2nd hand gearbox out of a write off,

Nissan wanted $7500 for a new gear box, it entirely shat itself, had a hole in the transmission casing

and it had a rather easy life prior to this

Sucks its happened with yours :(

mine took 8 weeks for nissan just to say "no its not covered under warranty and it'll be xxxx to fix"

12 weeks in total the car was gone :(

hopefullys its not as majors , but a week seems unlikely :(

[Danos]

- - - + + UPDATE + + - - -

Hey guys, Picked up my car on monday afternoon. All fixed but it was sent to another dealer to be fixed, there is apparently only one dealer in Sydney that does transmissions.

I've been meaning to have a look to see if it's the same old transmission or a nice shiny new one. Will have a good look on the weekend and let you know.

It does not feel like the transmission (in terms of drive) that it was before but that could be just cause it was almost stuffed before.

Toyota charged me nothing and said it was all covered by warrenty.

They did have my car for all of christmas which was not good.

[dave262]

Yeah - thanks guys. I'm not giving up on the loan car. Will be contacting Toyota HQ today and writing a nice letter.

Apparently there is a major transmission services at 45,000km which was done 2 weeks ago. My thoughts are that the service bloke has stuffed the service either by leaving air in the system or something else. It's already with Toyota, I'm just hoping that it's completely stuffed and they replace it. It's a Nov 2006 build so Dec 2008 is still under the factory warranty. I bought the car with 20,000kms on it and it's been serviced with Toyota through out it's life so far. Nothing there that I can see to void the warranty.

Will keep you posted

Hi,

not sure if this is correct but my understanding was that the transmission is sealed for life from the factory and does not require servicing or fluid replacement like older camrys.

No this is not the case, as transmission fluid will always require changing in any Auto transmission, as it will become contaminated with material from the clutches inside the transmission. It still requires the same service and care as any auto transmission.

- - - + + UPDATE + + - - -

Hey guys, Picked up my car on monday afternoon. All fixed but it was sent to another dealer to be fixed, there is apparently only one dealer in Sydney that does transmissions.

I've been meaning to have a look to see if it's the same old transmission or a nice shiny new one. Will have a good look on the weekend and let you know.

It does not feel like the transmission (in terms of drive) that it was before but that could be just cause it was almost stuffed before.

Toyota charged me nothing and said it was all covered by warrenty.

They did have my car for all of christmas which was not good.

Give it a few days to re-learn the shift patterns, as the ECU will have almost certainly been reset during the repair. Depending on what the issue was, it may have simply been swapped out by Toyota for a new transmission, which is generally cheaper than the hours required by mechanics to rebuild the transmission and also more reliable (as it will be certified and tested by Toyota).

[nathanb]

No this is not the case, as transmission fluid will always require changing in any Auto transmission, as it will become contaminated with material from the clutches inside the transmission. It still requires the same service and care as any auto transmission.

That was my thoughts too but if you check your service book or speak to your local dealer they do not replace the transmission fluid for at least 150000kms. The person i spoke (and the service book condirms this) say they will replace the fluid under severe conditions at 90000kms. Otherwise it is not replaced as part of the normal service.

[DJKOR]

No this is not the case, as transmission fluid will always require changing in any Auto transmission, as it will become contaminated with material from the clutches inside the transmission. It still requires the same service and care as any auto transmission.

That was my thoughts too but if you check your service book or speak to your local dealer they do not replace the transmission fluid for at least 150000kms. The person i spoke (and the service book condirms this) say they will replace the fluid under severe conditions at 90000kms. Otherwise it is not replaced as part of the normal service.

+1 on that one as well. Toyota has opted for some special WS (world standard) automatic transmission fluid. It only needs replacing after about 160,000km as far as Toyota is concerned. This has also led to the removal of the transmission fluid dipstick.

[RedGreen]

Just bought a second hand Aurion 2008, and I must say I am glad I found this forum, because I thought I got a "brummy". I was putting the car through its paces, and was accelerating from zero to as fast as I can legally take it on the highway, which was 110 Km/h there. I believe I was reaching the 4th or fifth gear and when I would have expected a gear change, it changed to nothing, like there was no more gears, and just rev'd so I lifted my foot off and re applied pressure, and it sorted itself out, but you could tell it was really not sure what to do, which is a concern. I often feel like it's wondering what gear to go into, especially, as pointed out previously, in traffic, when you dart here and there, this gear thing is dangerous, as you can't be sure what the gearbox will do next. Will you drop a gear and take off, or will it stay in that gear. I have been looking at performance chips in the hope that it may fix the problem, but have little hope. Come on Toyota, can't you fix it. Where's the patch? Can the chip be reprogrammed with later models data; will that fix it?

[trentmeyer23]

^^^ Have you actually tried taking it to Toyota?