Question for those with transmission issues
03-06-2024, 03:20 PM
#1
Racer
Thread Starter
Question for those with transmission issues
Serious question from a fellow C8 (2023 Stingray Z51/mag ride 3LT)…
is anyone trying the process of disconnecting their battery for a period of time, reconnecting, and seeing if the transmission problem has resolved itself?
i’m asking this because when I was at the level two school at Ron Fellows last summer, someone in the class asked the chief instructor if they have noticed any recurring problems on their cars, given that they cycle through so many of them. (They keep something like 250 cars on property and they cycle through them a lot.). Not surprisingly, the chief instructor said that the most common problem is seeing transmission faults such as the creep problem, and the transmission not being able to select every gear. He then said, however, that the problem appears to be software. I want to say that he said that only in one case did they actually have to replace the transmission. Their cars are not under warranty so they don’t go back to the dealer whenever there is a problem. Instead, their service team handles all of the maintenance and repairs on the cars. He said that the problem is common, but in all but just a couple of cases, the problem was completely solved by simply disconnecting the battery and reconnecting it.
On a somewhat related note, I have had a couple of electronic gremlins with my E46 BMW M3. That car has a regular six speed manual transmission in it, but at one point it was throwing a VANOS fault, which is related to the variable valve timing of the car. It also had a debilitating error related to the electronic gas pedal on the car. The dealer told me that the engine problem was somewhere between $8,000 to $10,000 to fix. It had happened, however, right after they did a software update and drained my battery in the process. When I saw how low the battery was, I declined them working on the system, took the car home, and fully charged it. I then disconnected and reconnected the battery, and everything was fine. No faults. That was 15 years ago. The throttle problem happened twice in the past 10 years, and both times was fixable by simply resetting the system using instructions I found on the Internet. Code cleared, car drives perfectly.
My point is that on these highly complicated, computer controlled machines that we drive, gremlins can and will occur, and are often cleared by simply resetting the computer by disconnecting the battery. If Ron Fellows school has cleared countless numbers of these in the course of their operations, I can only imagine how many people on this forum may have been able to move on with their lives by simply resetting the car. I would say it’s worth a shot before sending the car back to the dealer.
is anyone trying the process of disconnecting their battery for a period of time, reconnecting, and seeing if the transmission problem has resolved itself?
i’m asking this because when I was at the level two school at Ron Fellows last summer, someone in the class asked the chief instructor if they have noticed any recurring problems on their cars, given that they cycle through so many of them. (They keep something like 250 cars on property and they cycle through them a lot.). Not surprisingly, the chief instructor said that the most common problem is seeing transmission faults such as the creep problem, and the transmission not being able to select every gear. He then said, however, that the problem appears to be software. I want to say that he said that only in one case did they actually have to replace the transmission. Their cars are not under warranty so they don’t go back to the dealer whenever there is a problem. Instead, their service team handles all of the maintenance and repairs on the cars. He said that the problem is common, but in all but just a couple of cases, the problem was completely solved by simply disconnecting the battery and reconnecting it.
On a somewhat related note, I have had a couple of electronic gremlins with my E46 BMW M3. That car has a regular six speed manual transmission in it, but at one point it was throwing a VANOS fault, which is related to the variable valve timing of the car. It also had a debilitating error related to the electronic gas pedal on the car. The dealer told me that the engine problem was somewhere between $8,000 to $10,000 to fix. It had happened, however, right after they did a software update and drained my battery in the process. When I saw how low the battery was, I declined them working on the system, took the car home, and fully charged it. I then disconnected and reconnected the battery, and everything was fine. No faults. That was 15 years ago. The throttle problem happened twice in the past 10 years, and both times was fixable by simply resetting the system using instructions I found on the Internet. Code cleared, car drives perfectly.
My point is that on these highly complicated, computer controlled machines that we drive, gremlins can and will occur, and are often cleared by simply resetting the computer by disconnecting the battery. If Ron Fellows school has cleared countless numbers of these in the course of their operations, I can only imagine how many people on this forum may have been able to move on with their lives by simply resetting the car. I would say it’s worth a shot before sending the car back to the dealer.
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Ron_Attleboro_MA (03-06-2024)
03-06-2024, 04:01 PM
#3
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I am not advocating this without talking to the proper technician, but in many BMW dealerships, the hard reset is to disconnect both the cables from the battery, and then touch the cables together, which drains all the capacitors and gives you a completely fresh start. I wonder if anybody could talk to a technician about that…
03-06-2024, 04:54 PM
#4
Burning Brakes
Or, you can just wait 10-15 minutes..
I am not advocating this without talking to the proper technician, but in many BMW dealerships, the hard reset is to disconnect both the cables from the battery, and then touch the cables together, which drains all the capacitors and gives you a completely fresh start. I wonder if anybody could talk to a technician about that…
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Landru (03-07-2024)
03-06-2024, 05:04 PM
#6
Pro
I am not advocating this without talking to the proper technician, but in many BMW dealerships, the hard reset is to disconnect both the cables from the battery, and then touch the cables together, which drains all the capacitors and gives you a completely fresh start. I wonder if anybody could talk to a technician about that…
The following 3 users liked this post by Mark9:
03-06-2024, 05:23 PM
#7
03-06-2024, 05:40 PM
#8
Racer
Thread Starter
BMWs aside, I’d love to hear if anyone has done a reset on their C8.
i have had to do a battery disconnect reset twice on my C8, but not for transmissions. The PDR can lock up the screen if you turn off the car before first stopping the camera (if not in automatic mode). Did it twice at the track…worked like a charm.
i have had to do a battery disconnect reset twice on my C8, but not for transmissions. The PDR can lock up the screen if you turn off the car before first stopping the camera (if not in automatic mode). Did it twice at the track…worked like a charm.
03-06-2024, 06:17 PM
#10
I would add 1 step, after disconnecting battery, charge battery overnight with a decent charger. So you make sure you start out with a full charge on the reboot/restart !
Last edited by wsrc6; 03-08-2024 at 08:08 PM.
03-08-2024, 08:48 PM
#13
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St. Jude Donor '15
"In honor of jpee"
TTT, needs another one...
03-09-2024, 12:48 PM
#14
Racer
I tried power cycling mine the first time I got the nonspecific transmission MIL code, and, while the nonspecific code didn’t return, the shifting problems and warnings appeared a few weeks later, and the car was eventually diagnosed with a failed valve body.
03-12-2024, 04:18 PM
#15
I buy'em and drive'em this is my 8th
One question WHY does the C8 transmission have so many problems and are most of them the same problem or are there LOTS of things that go wrong
One question WHY does the C8 transmission have so many problems and are most of them the same problem or are there LOTS of things that go wrong