CalledSilke

Seat Altea Gearbox Issues

I'm hoping someone can help. I have a 2004 Seat Altea with a diesel engine and almost 200000 km on the clock. Recently, it's started acting up. The gearbox feels like it's slipping, and the shifts are really unclean. The mechanic's saying it's the transfer case going into limp mode, probably a powertrain malfunction but he suspects consequential faults related to the ABS system. Could this be related? What could cause that? Has anyone had this before?

4 comment(s)

Sounds familiar! I had a similar issue with my old Volvo. Kept getting powertrain malfunction warnings and the traction control light was always on. Did you check for any fault codes?

Fault codes, huh? Where do I even start looking for those? Is that something I can check myself, or do I need special equipment? And how could that affect the transfer case, which seems to be slipping? Is that even possible?

Yep, you need an OBD2 scanner to read the fault codes. A cheap one will do. In my case, it turned out to be a faulty ABS sensor. Apparently, it can mess with the traction control system and send weird signals to the torque converter, causing all sorts of problems. It's worth checking before you start tearing apart the transfer case. I'd recommend having a workshop check the ABS sensors.

Wow, that's amazing. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience! I took it to a mechanic, and you were spot on. It was indeed a faulty ABS sensor causing all sorts of mayhem. Apparently, the Altea is very sensitive to this. They replaced the sensor, cleared the fault codes, and the transfer case limp mode disappeared! Gear changes are smooth again and no powertrain malfunction light anymore. And the best thing? It was covered under warranty, so 0€! You saved me a lot of worry and potentially expensive repairs.

Join the discussion now: