lightrider
New member
I've done masses of reading here and on the alfaowners forum to try to figure out what's up with my gear selection problem, and now I'm asking for some help please.
My dualogic gearbox doesn't like changing gears. There's not a lot in the way of a pattern to it. Roughly, it often will not engage a gear when changing up or down and defaults to either N 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. The problem may occur when the engine is cold or hot. 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.
Initially, the car had trouble engaging reverse. Sometimes it would falter changing some other gear and need restarting. An end-of-line service using an examiner fixed that and the reverse problem hasn't (yet) come back. We've done two end of line services and 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.
The only gear showing any repeating tendency is from 5th down to 4th, where it dumps me into N or free-wheeling. As the problems become worse, it can mean restarting the engine every few hundred meters. Sometimes a gear refuses completely for an unpredictable time.
The pressure in the accumulator seems 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.
My next thought is a clutch retrain. Any suggestions or thoughts from the wonderful people of this forum would be most welcome.
My dualogic gearbox doesn't like changing gears. There's not a lot in the way of a pattern to it. Roughly, it often will not engage a gear when changing up or down and defaults to either N 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. The problem may occur when the engine is cold or hot. 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.
Initially, the car had trouble engaging reverse. Sometimes it would falter changing some other gear and need restarting. An end-of-line service using an examiner fixed that and the reverse problem hasn't (yet) come back. We've done two end of line services and 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.
The only gear showing any repeating tendency is from 5th down to 4th, where it dumps me into N or free-wheeling. As the problems become worse, it can mean restarting the engine every few hundred meters. Sometimes a gear refuses completely for an unpredictable time.
The pressure in the accumulator seems 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.
My next thought is a clutch retrain. Any suggestions or thoughts from the wonderful people of this forum would be most welcome.
