New member from Vic

[Matty1609]

Hi all,

New to the forums, just looking to meet some new people, talk some shit, offer some advise and what not, I'm a holden tech at the local dealer in town, anyways enough about myself, the stable of cars I currently have is a 2002 astra-g cd Z18XE 2000 VT clubsport and my misses has 2013 astra-j sport A16LET, and a VT commodore executive, so if anyone requires any information I may be able to assist them, cheers Mat

[guy 27]

Welcome to oa

[legsmatty]

Hi Matty. Welcome to the forum!

I'd love to pick your brain actually about my Astra J Sport (auto) that I got brand new a couple of months ago. Hoping you can shed some light on it from the perspective of a Holden tech as well as your wife owning the same car.

I'm really not happy with the transmission, and will be taking it to a Holden dealer in the new year. It's tricky to explain without sounding like I'm rambling, but it shunts & surges, doesn't select an active gear when you need it (most commonly coming out of corners and roundabouts) and just really detracts from what is otherwise an excellent car.

More detail:
- in low to medium speed driving, coming out of corners or roundabouts for example, you get back on the gas but it doesn't have a gear selected. By the time it gives you a gear, you've already built up revs, and it gives you a shunt.
- coming off freeways and coming to a stop at the end of the off ramp, occasionally the 2nd to 1st gear change actually surges you forward.
- slowly moving off from standstill - ie: if you just want to crawl in traffic without hitting the gas - it will shift into first with a shunt - I believe the transmission actually has a function where it always shifts to neutral when stationary. This is particularly problematic in carparks where you're maneuvering in close proximity with other cars and have had a few near misses.
- all of the above combined makes driving smoothly in stop-start traffic (8am monash freeway traffic for example) virtually impossible and in some cases the surging is actually quite dangerous.

I'm hoping it may be a simple case of updating software or something. But I really don't expect a brand new car to be exhibiting this behavior. My 13 year old (ex)magna used to have a better transmission.

Looking forward to your thoughts on this.

Cheers
Matt

[Matty1609]

Hi matt, thanks for picking my brain straight up! Haha, our astra we brought is manual as we rest drove the auto version and I wasn't impressed with it at all, it feels like a lot of the cruze auto transmissions, (unsure as to if they are the same auto but nearly certain they are) from what your saying is exactly how the one I test drove felt like, I havnt seen any tech info come through, another guy at work also brought one there's being auto, it was doing weird things, but it came good with a week of driving, have you tried disconnecting the battery to see if it looses it's learnt auto memory to reset the TCM?

[legsmatty]

Thanks for replying. I've been desperate to get any opinions on the issue!

Unfortunately the issue wasn't evident during dest driving (though I didn't test drive the actual car I was buying). I also think it's gotten a bit worse with time (or perhaps I'm just getting more annoyed with it).

I'll try disconnecting the battery and see how I go. This should be a straight forward process yes??

Matt

[Matty1609]

Yeah disconnect it for a bit, you will just have to reset the clock etc when you reconnect it, see how it goes, if no good take it to your local holden dealer!

[legsmatty]

Thanks Matty. Your opinion is greatly appreciated!

[dutchy]

Welcome to the forum Mat

[sooty]

Welcome to OA

[faneca]

Welcome along!
legsmatty
Probably easier to open up a new thread in the Astra j section so these posts don't get lost in the intro threads.

[PreeCilla]

Welcome. My gearbox was a bit jumpy before. I dont know if it was as bad as this but its settled down now. I assumed it was just adaptive?
Also some Astra's may have a start/stop feature. Guys can help you sort out if thats the case..

[bpoin007]

Welcome to OA