Technical AMT temporary failure. Electrical issue?

[ashesu]

Hello.
I have a 2009 1.2 Fire Panda with an automated manual gearbox. Today while driving, during a gear hange it got stuck in neutral. No warnings in the dash. Turning off and on the engine, moving the shifter in any way did not help. I once heard an unusual noise coming from the gearbox - the pump/motor that controls the transmission. A few minutes later when I started the car again everything started working normally.

Also, since few days ago steering wheel warning dash light with text "have power steering checked" started coming up sometimes although everything seemed to work normally.

I'm thinking these might be related to some electrical issue. Though the battery is relatively new (1.5 years old) and was changed with the dynamo recently according to the man who sold it.

For a month everything was fine, I drove mostly with city mode on too.

Any ideas what this could be in particular?

I would check the battery voltage with multimeter and look for issues with OBD2 but I don't have these at the moment.

I appreciate any help.

 

[ashesu]

You can force it to drop that low if you put absolutely everything on

At idle should be 14.1 nothing on
With the rear heated window , head lights and blowers on full it should be in the mid to high 13s
At idle back to 14.1 If you rev it a bit

Right, thanks.

So that one Dualogic failure remains a mystery. I'll drive the car for now.

 

[ashesu]

Aaand it happened again. Went into neutral in the middle of the road.
No noise from the gearbox at first when moving the shifter. After a few minutes some quiet unusual noise as if it's struggling to change gear. After a few more minutes and restarting the car it's all back to normal. All same as the first time.

I don't think the whole actuator is busted since it all goes back to normal.
Could it be pump relay?
The accumulator (black bulb)?
The pump motor?

Will Multiecuscan give me a clue here?

 

[Mike1alike]

Will Multiecuscan give me a clue here?

It should give, yes. Check and tell if it does
It sounds like a problem with connections. Check all the electrical cables connected to gearbox.

 

[koalar]

Yes there some thing that can be done with multiecuscan I guess the first is scan for codes on the dialogics control unit

This might tell us a direction to go next

Some common ones below


P1760 – Brake Switch
P0571 – Service Brake Switch (from CAN)
P1741 – Clutch Position Sensor
P1742 – Multi-position Sensor (range sensor)
P1743 – Clutch Plate Sensor
P1769 – Pilot Pump Relay Switch Is Stuck (Pilot Relay)
P1810 – Incorrect Clutch Work at gear shifting
Р1773 – Hydraulic Circuit Pressure
P1744 – Hydraulic Circuit Pressure Sensor
С0060 – ECU Failure (Microchip)
P1818 – Gear Shifting Control

You can look at the pressure and it should fall gradually with each gear shift

Engine on
Change between 1st, R and Neutral the pressure should not go below 36 and should immediately pressurize back to 46/48 bar

Engine off, the pressure shouldn't drop more than 3 bars.

You can look at the clutch wear index

There's enough for now to be going on with

 

[ashesu]

Yes there some thing that can be done with multiecuscan I guess the first is scan for codes on the dialogics control unit

This might tell us a direction to go next

Some common ones below


P1760 – Brake Switch
P0571 – Service Brake Switch (from CAN)
P1741 – Clutch Position Sensor
P1742 – Multi-position Sensor (range sensor)
P1743 – Clutch Plate Sensor
P1769 – Pilot Pump Relay Switch Is Stuck (Pilot Relay)
P1810 – Incorrect Clutch Work at gear shifting
Р1773 – Hydraulic Circuit Pressure
P1744 – Hydraulic Circuit Pressure Sensor
С0060 – ECU Failure (Microchip)
P1818 – Gear Shifting Control

You can look at the pressure and it should fall gradually with each gear shift

View attachment 480962

Engine on
Change between 1st, R and Neutral the pressure should not go below 36 and should immediately pressurize back to 46/48 bar

Engine off, the pressure shouldn't drop more than 3 bars.

You can look at the clutch wear index

There's enough for now to be going on with

1 stored error: P1818
Clutch degradation index: 3951

The hydraulic pressure graph looks like this when changing the gears around ~5 times in MAR. Seems too spiky.
Forgot to check engine off pressure drop, will do when I can.


By the way, the yellow OBD2 cable wouldn't connect. Various errors and even when there were no errors and test got completed successfully it still wouldn't connect.
If the bluetooth adapter alone can do this, what is the point of the yellow cable then?

 

[Mike1alike]

The Multiecuscan scan and graph are exactly what we needed. You’ve now got a real Dualogic code P1818 (Gear Shifting Control) and the hydraulic pressure trace. The way the pressure goes spiky instead of stable tells me this is likely a control/signal issue, not a broken actuator.

Common causes at this stage are:
wiring/connector issues to the gearbox or pump/pressure sensor
poor ground to the AMT ECU
intermittent pump relay or sensor signal.
Check all harness connectors and earths at the gearbox and AMT ECU, confirm good power/ground.
Pressure regulation faults like this rarely show on cheap readers, Multiecuscan is doing exactly what it should. Once connectors and grounds are confirmed good, we can narrow it further based on any additional codes.

 

[koalar]

Clutch degradation index: 3951
Should be fine unless someone has previously reset it, normally good if under 6000

P1818 is the worse code to have, it doesn't help much, it basically saying something gone wrong, help, it has many causes,.from simple thing like oil change, low oil, to serious internal problems and everything in-between

The graph is pretty interesting, it's dropping twice as much on each gear shift which is concerning, the pump kicking in at the right place and stopping in the right place, I am favouring the accumulator, part of its job is to smooth out the presures as well as storing pressure, the only way I know to test them is to depressurise the system and weigh them, should be around 650g give or take 50g or so, the have a lifespan typically of 60-80K miles

am not an expert on dualogic. I don't know how much pressure drop is worn but acceptable,

One of the symptom of a failing accumulator is faults starting to creep in

Do the pressure drop test with the engine off,

 

[ashesu]

Do the pressure drop test with the engine off,

If I'm seeing it correctly, it drops just around 1 bar.

 

[ashesu]

Swapped relays. No apparent change.
Did gearbox self calibration with MES. After a minute of noises from the gearbox it got completed with a message "N/R selection error".

Will thoroughly check gearbox connectors later.


Anyone here by chance know a good specialist on these gearboxes in the Netherlands?

 

[koalar]

If I'm seeing it correctly, it drops just around 1 bar.

Which is good no internal leaks

This should work on you car,.but I have no idea what the values should be

Ducato 3.0 multijet 160 comformatic fix selespeed magnetti | FIAT Ducato/e-Ducato (Gen 3)

Sorry yes I meant to put accumulator mate and no idea on why The pressure accumulator is filled with nitrogen (24 bar @20 Deg C when new) which is kept separated from the hydraulic oil by a membrane. If the membrane breaks, there will be immediate problems i.e. the pump will start running most...

www.fiatforum.com

No idea about the Netherlands,.here in the UK there's not many people that will touch the dialogic

@A3jeroen is from your country and is a regular contributer to the forum,.maybe they know someone

 

[A3jeroen]

Google someone specialised in Alfa selespeed. I do not personally know of any reputable party, but there must be some.

gr J

 

[koalar]

Sorry I can't be of more use

Dualogic is not my area of expertise

The accumulator looks favourite to me, they last between 60-80K miles normally but there's no hard and fast rule

It's a £70 part I would want to be more sure than this before ordering one

If it was my car I would depressurise the system, remove the accumulator and weigh it , not that hard to do

There's a guide on here on changing if you go that route

 

[ashesu]

Sorry I can't be of more use

Dualogic is not my area of expertise

The accumulator looks favourite to me, they last between 60-80K miles normally but there's no hard and fast rule

It's a £70 part I would want to be more sure than this before ordering one

If it was my car I would depressurise the system, remove the accumulator and weigh it , not that hard to do

There's a guide on here on changing if you go that route

Thanks for all the help so far. Will look into that this weekend.