Audi 1.8T automatic transmission fluid mishap

mobfromcork

My neighbour called around earlier looking for some help removing a stubborn oil filter on his 2000 Audi A6 1.8T automatic. To cut a long-ish story short, he has unfortunately drained the AT fluid instead of the engine oil. He now has his car up on ramps with approx 7 litres of oil in the engine and no fluid in the gearbox.
It was nearly dark by the time this was noticed so no time to investigate further.

I would like to help him sort it if possible. I have changed the gear oil on three manuals cars, all Mazdas, but have never done an auto box before. I had a quick look but couldn't find see a filler nut.

Is anyone familiar with this engine/gearbox? Is filling the gearbox with ATF a straightforward job or would he be better getting it lifted to a garage?

Any advice is appreciated.

Mark

George Dalton

He will have to get it to a garage, they need to be filled from underneath with a special tool. Where is the car? If it is in Dublin 8 then contact Autotranz, they can lift it and refill it no problem.

mobfromcork

Thanks for the reply George. It's in Dublin 8 alright. I saw on some of the Audi forums that a special pump/tool might be needed but I couldn't find the exact model. I'll pass on the advice.

Do Autotranz do general work as well or just gearbox related problems? A few other problems showed up today which are beyond my level of expertise and will need to be looked at by a mechanic. I was just to try and help him get back on the road but it now looks like he will have to get lifted.

The other problems are -there quite bit of oil sprayed around the front right hand side of the engine (as you are looking under the bonnet) and pooling under the oil filter. There is a large area covered and it's difficult to see where the leak started. There was also a large quantity of oil in all the spark plug wells. Seals gone maybe? There's only around 50k miles on the engine, belts done at 14k miles.
Maybe the problems are related, maybe not.

On a side note, the spark plugs (original Audi ones) were absolutely welded in. Whoever put them in must have swung out of them!!

Thanks

Mark

George Dalton

As far as I know they only do automatic gearbox related work.

Tropheus

Draining the gearbox instead of the sump is easy to do if you're not familiar with the car. I nearly did it on my wife's Audi A2 when I serviced it first. Luckily I took a second look before undoing the drain plug.

mobfromcork

Tropheus wrote: »

Draining the gearbox instead of the sump is easy to do if you're not familiar with the car. I nearly did it on my wife's Audi A2 when I serviced it first. Luckily I took a second look before undoing the drain plug.

I don't think he had worked on this car before unfortunately so he made this mistake. I did a quick google search and it does seem to be a problem that crops up a bit.

Can anyone recommend a garage around Dublin 8/12 that might be able to do the gearbox and fix the other issues with the oil in the spark plug wells etc?

I'll pass on the Autotranz recommendation anyway George in case he wants to get that sorted there.

Thanks for the help

anthony4335

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXil6QQOCmg

mobfromcork

Thanks to all for the advice. He changed out the engine oil this morning (opening the correct nut this time) and refilled to the proper level. He decided to refill the transmission himself after watching the above video and some other online tutorials. He went to four motor factors in the south city to try and buy a fluid hand-pump but no-one had one in stock. So he then rigged up a long length of fuel pipe and funnel and gravity fed the fluid in, starting the engine periodically to pump the fluid around the gear-box. He might be a small bit short but needs to drop the car to a garage anyway to get the oil leak sorted so they can top it up there.