A regular inspection under your vehicle (provided there is no undertray) to check for leaks can be a very effective way of catching an oil leak early on. There’s usually only ever a problem when your gearbox develops an oil leak and there’s no longer enough oil to operate your valves effectively. This system is great and works well, as the oil will keep the galleries lubricated and prevent excessive heat build-up. These hydraulic systems work by having fluid pushed and pulled around various galleries to engage or disengage certain valves. Transmission Fluid LeakĪ fluid leak will, of course, only be noticeable on a hydraulic valve body system. With this in mind, get it looked at and repaired ASAP, as you run the risk of having your valve body ruin the gears within your gearbox. This is what gives you the harsh grinding noise. It’s like putting a screwdriver into the propellers of a turning fan. This is usually caused by the valve body not waiting to disengage a gear while engaging a new one. Just as if you were driving a manual gearbox and heard harsh noises when changing gear, this would point towards a faulty gearbox the same is often true with an automatic box. If this is happening to you, try to get your vehicle looked at and repaired as soon as possible, as this kind of faulty will only usually get worse and cause more damage to other gearbox components and mounts. Instead of smoothly disengaging from one gear and gently engaging the new gear, you may find that your vehicle “snatches” at new gears, causing the car to jerk forwards as it does so. However, if your valve body is faulty, this can cause a much sharper gear change, usually felt by the driver. Sharp Gear ChangesĪs well as not changing gears when it should, you might also notice that your vehicle is slowly becoming a lot harsher in how it shifts up and down gears.īy design, nearly all modern automatic gearboxes should be smooth when changing gears to improve drive quality and driver comfort. If you begin to notice that your vehicle has a delay between changing gears via an increase in RPM when both accelerating or decelerating before changing gears, then once again, this would suggest that your valve body is delaying the gear change, and will require some diagnosis to find out why. You know roughly when a gear change should take place as you accelerate, and at what rate your vehicle shifts down the gears as you slow down. This kind of fault is usually most noticeable if you’ve driven or you’ve owned the car for many years and have gotten to know how it drives on a day to day basis. Similar to the “wrong gear change” section, if your vehicle isn’t changing gears when it should be, this could indicate that your valve body is at fault. This could prevent gears from being fully engaged, causing them to slip as you take up the drive. You see, it could be that a valve inside the valve body assembly has started sticking or is no longer fully extending as it should. However, on an automatic box, it’s not quite that simple. The feeling is quite similar as you lower the throttle pedal to accelerate, your RPM increases, but your speed doesn’t.ĩ0% of the time, this would indicate a worn-out friction plate that needs replacing on a manual box. But maybe you’ve never experienced this while driving an automatic gearbox. Most of you will know the feeling of having your clutch slip while driving a manual box. Also, if you notice that your gearbox is skipping gears when shifting either up or down, this could also point towards a faulty valve body. So, if you notice that your vehicle’s recently decided to either change up or down a gear when you were expecting the opposite, this could be a sign of a faulty valve body. They are designed not only to respond to your throttle pedal, but also to change gears at the most economical RPM to help make your vehicle as fuel-efficient as possible. Wrong Gear ChangesĪs stated in the introduction, your valve body will be the brains behind your gear change on an automatic gearbox. Here is a more detailed list of the signs of a bad or failing valve body to look for: 1. It could also cause a slipping transmission. These shifting issues include wrong shifting, wrongly timed gear changes, or sharp gear changes. The most common symptom of a bad valve body is various types of shifting issues.
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