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Old 08-21-2017, 10:50 AM   #1
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Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: Beverly Hills Mi
Posts: 64
Strange automatic transmission issue. Any ideas?

Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. I had an interesting issue with my 1999 2.5L tip Boxster last week. Work was crazy and it was Dream Cruise weekend here in Michigan so I’ve only just got round to coming here and asking about it. I’ll describe the issue first then the background on the car. My (out of date) log on the car is here on the forum.

So last week I was heading into work early. The sun had just come up and the stretch of freeway was completely clear in front of me for as far as I could see, so I took advantage and possibly accelerated up to an alleged indicated 12.7mph before a car started to merge ½ mile ahead. I then braked down to 10.0mph, then coasted down to about 80mph before I went back on the throttle to maintain speed. That’s when it happened. It was as if the car was in neutral. The engine revs would go up and down with my foot on the throttle, but there was zero effect on the cars speed. I flicked it into neutral and back into gear. Nothing. I did this a couple of times and still nothing. By now I had coasted down to about 70 mph and I pulled the stick over to S and used the wheel mounted buttons to down shift to 4th then back up to 5th. After that everything was fine and it didn’t do it again, even after an alleged brief run up to 10.0mph and back and has been fine ever since. The car was perfectly in its operating temperature range, I’d been on the road around 12 mins on a 70ish degree day. Plenty long enough to be up to temperature, but not long enough to heat soak anything. It’s not as if the speed was massively excessive. The weekend before on a trip up North the magic of Waze and a new Radar detector saw an alleged indicated 13.1mph with no ill effects. Let’s face it, in Germany these speeds are many peoples daily commute. Any idea what it could be? See next paragraph for history of the car, trans and maintenance.

I bought the car in May 2016 with just under 77k miles on it for a total steal at $5k. The car wasn’t perfect and an auto wasn’t what I was searching for, but this had a few unbeatable points in its favor. It had a brand new engine fitted by Porsche under warranty in 2005 only 20k miles before (I have paper work to prove this) this was the major selling point to me. I was almost crippled with back pain and couldn’t drive a manual, but have since had back surgery and can drive three pedals again. Finally it allowed me to use the rest of the money originally scheduled to buy a perfect 986S as the deposited on another rental house. Win, win, win in my book. When I first got the car the trans was slipping. Reading up that sounded like old and or low fluid. Although I do all my own work I called the local Porsche dealer service dept. (Fred Lavery in Birmingham Mi) and asked how they flushed the trans fluid in Trip cars. If they had done a full pump out and replacement I’d have taken it to them, but they admitted they just drain the fluid, change the filter and re-fil. Well that only changes approx. 1/3 of the fluid as the rest is in the torque convertor and I can do that myself, so that’s what I did. I got a new filter (from the dealer, cheaper than Pelican) and got the recommended (in 101 projects and on Pelican) Pentosin ATF-1, changed the filter and refilled. Yes I bought an infra-red pyrometer and did the fill, run up to temp, re-fil etc. procedure three times while up on four jack stands to make sure it was level. Since this only changes around 1/3 of the fluid I planned on doing this every 5,000 miles for a couple of years to make sure it’s really all flushed through. That first flush was 7/26/16 at 77,657 miles I did the second change (fluid only, not filter) this spring at 81,309 miles on 4/9/17 after its winter hibernation. Over time the shifts have felt better, but are still not perfect. Occasionally they will slip, or you will get a rev flair then bang and it engages gear.

One more important thing to note. While I use the car mainly locally, at the beginning of June we the two of us headed to Chicago to see some family for the weekend. We decided we’d take it easy, avoid the freeways and drive across back roads with the top down. We got about 60 miles when I started smelling coolant. Temp was fine though. Then a few mins later the rear disappeared in steam and I lifted off, then the temp gauge pegged and I killed the engine and coasted to a stop. In the most amazing piece of luck we were going to visit some friends at work for lunch and rolled into their parking lot in neutral with the engine off. A quick diagnose showed it whatever the leak was, was not accessible by the side of the road. Scrub the trip to Chicago. Luckily the friends have a trailer and SUV so they took us home. Further investigation showed that the issue was one of those amazingly stupidly needlessly complex bits of German engineering it is the vacuum operated valve in the coolant system that send cooling water through the trans cooler. Most cars get away with a simple thermostat, no cooler or a cooler circulating all the time. Anyway, another order to Pelican, and I replaced all the hoses around there at the same time and after bleeding (not as hard as people make out) the cooling system was fixed and everything else was fine.

So. Any idea what it could be? Any idea about the still poor quality of my shifts (although infinitely better than when I got the car)

Thanks all.

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Budget 1999 986. Not much, but it's mine all mine.
Volvo C30 picked up Euro delivary 6/26/08 drove the Nurburgring 6/30/08
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Old 08-22-2017, 10:23 AM   #2
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Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: Beverly Hills Mi
Posts: 64
Crickets chirpping ??

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Budget 1999 986. Not much, but it's mine all mine.
Volvo C30 picked up Euro delivary 6/26/08 drove the Nurburgring 6/30/08
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