'Check Gearbox'

[ikhan]

Posting this on behalf of a mate whose got a 1.6 Megane auto (2006).

I don't know much about these auto's, but he came down to me yesterday saying that the car goes into limp mode with the display saying 'check gearbox'. I drove it around for a fair while but was unable to reproduce the fault. I did observe the following though:

1, In manual mode, the gears would change normally as demanded;
2, In auto mode, the car would rarely change up from 3rd. If I put the car into 4th in manual mode at, say 40mph, as soon as I put it into auto mode, the car would drop down to 3rd;
3, Once the engine was nice and warm (as was the transmission by this point), the gear change seemed to be normal in auto mode as well.


The manual says that if the 'check gearbox' sign comes on together with the 'service' light then there is a fault. However, apparently, the 'check gearbox' message is not accompanied with the 'service' indicator.

I thought that maybe the gearbox fluid is either low, or could do with a change, but I couldn't find the dipstick to check the transmission level on this - do these even have one?

Also might be worth mentioning that this problem started AFTER he drove the car into a wall, and bent the wishbone. Apart from a scrape on the wing (and the bent wishbone) there was no other visible damage, but I'm thinking maybe the driveshaft has either damaged the gearbox, needs to be pulled out and re-seated, or its broken a seal, letting oil out and a drop in pressure. All wild theories really, and he needs to get it diagnosed on a computer, but I thought I'd ask here as well.

On a side-note, are these cars fully automatic with triptonic, or do these use a normal manual gearbox with clutch and everything like on the Alfa's? I thought these were traditional auto 'boxes but on of the garages we popped into said this was a manual gearbox with clutch etc (so no torque convertor) and the clutch could be faulty. I'm assuming if that was true then it would be the same in both modes?

[ikhan]

Was with him yesterday when the 'Check Gearbox' message came up - no other warning lights. Even in manual mode, it was showing 'D' on the display and wasn't driving in that mode as it should. Switching the engine off and back on reset the warning....

[sparky46]

Hi. Had the same problem with my brand new cc, 2008 model after 10 months. Diagnosed at Renault dealer as "high gearbox pressure". No action taken by them. It happened a few times after that and then stopped - that was until 3 weeks ago. The gremlin is back. Same problem, check gearbox, engine off / on again and no problems until the next day. I took it to an independent auto gearbox specialist who hooked it up and gave a " gearbox pressure regulation" fault code and also showed me the computer readout. The usual problem is the solenoid body for the gear change. I was told to contact Renault UK as my car only has 24,000 miles on it. There is an inherent fault with these gearboxes and many cars have the problem. I'll post again when i've contacted Renault UK.
Hope this helps you.

[adam19a]

i had the same problem, used to happen when the car was cold and it like jumps out of the gear or something. in Renault service they said it was some gear sensor, when they changed it everything was fine