Hi. I had this in "tech talk" but mostly met with tumbleweed. I'm entering phase 17 of getting my car sorted so I'm hoping for a little help here if anyone's got some wisdom for me please?

My dualogic gearbox doesn't like changing gears. Initially, the car had trouble engaging reverse. Sometimes it would falter during some other gear change and need restarting. It often would not engage a gear when changing up or down, defaulting to either neutral or clutch open. The only way to get going again is to turn the engine off and restart it. This usually works, but not always. Warning lights and beeps come on, and the dash sometimes says "Gearbox Fail." or "Gear unavailable" but the only errors the examiner has read are "Gear change control" once and "Fuel level signal" once.

An end-of-line service using an examiner fixes things for a while and the reverse problem hasn't (yet) come back. After end-of-line services the pattern is that the gear changes get increasingly unreliable until the end-of-line puts everything right for a few days. The mechanic explained this as overcoming a reluctance learned by the ECU upon meeting resistance during gear changes.

On first testing, the pressure in the accumulator seemed ok at 45-48 bar. The pump sounds like it's working fine with a 12-15 second whine initially and then a few seconds every few gear changes. The battery showed 13V. The car has about 47000 miles.

The car has now had a thorough maintenance of the dualogic/selespeed system: oil level, clutch retrain, sensors cleaned, cpu reset, and whatever else the mechanic got up to that I can't remember. It sounded thorough and it was done by Paul at Motormech in Birmingham and he's got a good reputation.

After this maintenance it drove beautifully (less gear clunk, no problems) for about 150 miles. Then the problems started again. The biggest problems are from 5th to 4th (engine must restart to drive at all) and 2nd to 3rd (refuses 3rd after engine gets hot and seems ok after engine cools).

So: gearbox knackered, do you reckon? Any other possibilities before replacing/fixing it?

If it's the gearbox, replace? Recondition? Is the gearbox on diesel dualogic the same as on the manual version?

Another problem that may or may not be related is an error in the radiator temperature/fluid level. It comes up as an error on engine start but the coolant is fine, and so is the temperature. I suspect a sensor fault.

Any help will be much appreciated!

The mileage is a bit low for worn out clutch (underneath its a manual type clutch gearbox system), but its worth checking the clutch is properly disengaging. Puntos clutches fail to open long before they start to slip.

Thank you for the reply.

Failing to open before slipping meaning the tell-tale clutch smell wouldn't be there? It isn't. I'll try to get that checked soon, ta.

I was also wondering about wear on a gearbox. In my mind, if a gear wears then it should be difficult to engage/disengage whether moving up or down to it. For example, it doesn't fail going from 4th to 3rd, but will often fail going from 2nd to 3rd. Am I simplifying it too much?

On these cars the clutch pressure plate almost always fails first with the release bearing wearing a groove into the spring fingers that it bears up against. On a manual car you feel the clutch action going lumpy and bouncy like something is bending but nothing is happening. The effect is hard to engage 1st gear and increasingly knotchy downshifts especially from 5th and 3rd. I put up with mine by throttle blipping (bike style) to get smooth downshifts. Obviously you cant do that on a duologic.

My Mother had a Panda Duologic (which I liked), but it never encourages you to use neutral and when you do, its slow to wake up when you want to get going.

It could be the car has sat a lot at traffic lights in gear and its done in the clutch pressure plate. It could of course just be faulty actuators so it will need the ECU codes to be read and see what comes out. I have no idea if FiatECUScan can do that.

You're quite right that it never encourages neutral. I can see how the clutch would wear differently. Bizarre thing to me is that the ECU codes aren't picking up any of this. Even with the examiner hooked up while the error occurs and the dash screaming Gearbox Fail, none of it comes through to the examiner.

Would faulty actuators definitely produce an error code? Between the actuators, the sensors, the clutch, the gearbox itself, and the other bits that make up the whole unit, it's a real hit-and-miss diagnosis process, isn't it? I fear falling into the trap where you keep replacing things one at a time, accumulating great expense.

I can't get the car in to Motormech for another 2 weeks and rely on it rather heavily. I'm willing to take it elsewhere if I know what I'm after. I do have options around here. I think the plan at Motormech is to recondition the gearbox. But it might not be that... Ah, the joys of car ownership, eh?

And limping the car home last night got me to sleep at 4am so I'll probably think more clearly tomorrow after a proper night's sleep.

You are right to be careful, but I can't help you with the electronic details. Someone will be along soon.

Can i say something here
Its Free / Fairly Cheap todo

And you might Kick yourself if it works

The Automatic box's work with the Rear Brake lights
Its odd, but The Reverse Lights / Brake lights work with the Gearbox

Give the rear clusters Pins a Good clean with some abrasive paper and Spray them with a Contact cleaner - and spray the plug too

see if that helps

Ziggy

Ziggy,

Thanks for that. It's exactly the sort of thing I'd rather know about before spending £500 unnecessarily! I recall seeing that tip before somewhere in a thread where the OP ignored it and ultimately found it to be the right diagnosis. The idea had fallen through my sieve of a brain so thank you.

In case I can manage myself (dexterity problems but I try), where is this rear cluster to be found?

**EDIT**
Doh! It's just dawned on me that you probably don't mean a connector block near the front of the car but the actual light cluster at the rear. My brain was temporarily unable to conceive of the auto box getting messed up by a contact way back there.

As ever Im looking at the big stuff

The reversing switch on the standard car is the same on the auto models and is used by the gearbox ECU to do what ever it does when you select reverse. If it thinks you have suddenly gone into reverse it gets all off a fuffle. Clean the rear light bulb contacts and clean the earth cable in the boot that earths the lights to the car body. If there is a fault there at least its then ruled out and its no cost/very cheap to fix.

Well we've had a go at the rear cluster contacts. The earth pin on the right side was very corroded so who knows? He didn't touch the switches because he didn't know what was what. The car behaved perfectly on the way to the garage but it wasn't far so it didn't get hot.

Is it possible for the gearbox to be overheating? Could this be related to the Max Temperature and Radiator Liquid error messages I'm getting when I start the car?

I can't quite understand the logic of the problem. As it stands the car refuses to go into 3rd form 2nd when hot but never has a problem going from 4th to 3rd. Surely if there's a problem with the 3rd physical gear then the direction of shift wouldn't matter??

Who knows what it is, but sorting out that earth is a good way to finding out. If the rear lights (including brakes) were earthing though each other, due to that bad connection, anything can have been picked up by the gearbox electronics.

The gearbox electronics sense the reverse has (or has not) been selected from the reverse light signal, but the programmers will have assumed everything always works properly so wont have a scheme for when an illogical signal arrives.

Ziggy122 said:

Can i say something here
Its Free / Fairly Cheap todo

And you might Kick yourself if it works

The Automatic box's work with the Rear Brake lights
Its odd, but The Reverse Lights / Brake lights work with the Gearbox

Give the rear clusters Pins a Good clean with some abrasive paper and Spray them with a Contact cleaner - and spray the plug too

see if that helps

Ziggy

Click to expand...

I had this problem on a Punto ELX..That helped to clean the connectors.
Now I have the problem with Panda Dualogic going in to Neutral.