The Dark Wob

A faulty crank sensor may also cause the box issues. The gearbox ECU has to take various readings from all the engine sensors.

I don't think it was that, as the gearbox simply lost drive and engine revved freely which showed on the rev counter. It then thonked back into a gear. I reckon it's either the fluid is a tad on the low side and my vigorous driving sloshed it or foamed it up. Or I just confused it by accelerating hard at the wrong time for it, so it was half way changing to another gear and then the hard demand wanted it to go down a gear but it wasn't ready. So it disengaged all the clutch bands until it could sync itself back into the gear it wanted.

I can't imagine PSA and Renault would have done a fantastic job of the software in it...
My experience is that most of the electronic modules of this era have half hearted attempts in their implementation. Like the PSA BSI corrupting itself if you disconnect the battery without doing a dance. The Laguna body computer just stops the wipers working entirely if the motor parking switch doesn't activate after a couple seconds of switching off the wipers. Certain generations of the Scenic with the 1.5 DCI will disable the air conditioning if you have the interior fan on full speed, air con on and accelerate hard from a standstill. Stupid stuff all like that.

SiC wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:06 pmCertain generations of the Scenic with the 1.5 DCI will disable the air conditioning if you have the interior fan on full speed, air con on and accelerate hard from a standstill. Stupid stuff all like that.

Every car I knew of for years in the 90s/00s used to disengage the A/C clutch at full throttle. I don't know if it's still a thing with silly small engines as I don't own one anymore.

Hooli wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 9:47 am

SiC wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:06 pmCertain generations of the Scenic with the 1.5 DCI will disable the air conditioning if you have the interior fan on full speed, air con on and accelerate hard from a standstill. Stupid stuff all like that.

Every car I knew of for years in the 90s/00s used to disengage the A/C clutch at full throttle. I don't know if it's still a thing with silly small engines as I don't own one anymore.

This isn't disengaging, this is disabling the Aircon and throwing an error code in the ECU.

DF1070 Cold Loop Fault
https://www.renaultforums.co.uk/threads ... on.176210/

My father-in-law had that code on his crop up often from new. After 3yrs he got rid as company car but I don't believe Renault ever fixed it.

Ahh ok, sounds very french to me.

Special curved plastic dipstick on the manuals, maybe auto as well. A common error was to fill the box to the filler plug level - fucks the box and blows the oil seals out.

I think these are drain & fill with a set amount, SiC will know as he had the same box the old Saab he sold me.

It's that Saab still going with the clonky box? Did anybody ever get round to fixing it

I never fixed it as using it kept improving it. I raffled it on & can't recall who got it except it was a tall bloke who sold it again.

LC54HNM, isn't showing on the DVLA anymore so I suspect someone killed it. Shame as it seemed to have years left in it when I had it.

95quidpeugeot won it in a raffle last and is was still working fine at that point apparently. Asked where it is now, he said he lent it to a friend. Upon which I questioned why the tax ran out shortly after he had it and it looked it was marked as scrapped. Got no response.

This has a different gearbox from the AW55 as used in Volvo, Saab and the Laguna V6 I had. That was a 5 speed, this is a 4 speed. Designed in conjunction with PSA and Renault, it was used mostly on lower power stuff - sub 150bhp mostly. Code named by PSA as AL4 and Renault named it DP0.

Mostly solid units apart from the pressure control solenoid goes when cold. However reconnects internally when hot, so many restart the box when the car is warm to get it back out of limp mode until it cools off again. Not a hard job to fix apparently but most don't bother as it's French and thus worthless to the average British car buyer. Also suffer from filled for life nonsense.

No dipstick on this gearbox annoyingly. Fluid level is done by a two piece drainplug that has an inner piece with a tube on. Remove both pieces to drain. Then replace inner tube piece, fill, wait till drips out. Start engine and fluid get to ~35C, then replace outer drain plug piece. Then reset the oil life counter in the Gearbox ECU.

I can't be bothered to do such ballache job until we've moved and it's a bit warmer. So I'm just driving it mechanically respectfully for now and monitoring it's behaviour.