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2009 XT slipping/studdering and CEL

('09-'13) 
4K views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  trailangel 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi,

I've done a little bit of searching on the forum and haven't found the same exact problem I'm having, so I'm hoping for some help. In short I'm having some slipping & shuddering from the AT in my 2009 Forester XT with ~85k miles.

The long version:

I noticed last week that the car would seem to loose power when in reverse. It wouldn't slip, as in the revs didn't go up, but it seems like it was as if I took my foot off the gas. I checked the AT fluid and it was a bit dark, so I drained it last week.

Then we drove it a few hundred miles without any trouble, including a 7 hours of driving yesterday. Then today, it started shudder and trip the CEL when at WOT from a stop. The codes were P0734 & P0700. Based on some research, I checked the fluid and the level was a little high. So I took some fluid out (about 1/2 a quart) until it was just at the high mark. (Edit: I realized I didn't check it when the car was running)

When I took the Forester back out, it seemed to be driving ok. Then it suddered/chattered at a slow acceleration when I turned on to my street. I took the car back out for a 15 minute drive, with all sorts of soft & hard starts, and it drove without any more problems. Then we went back out for a 50 mile drive with not problems until we were almost back home when it started slipping a lot. This time same codes plus P0733.

Right now I'm sort of at a loss, it seems like low mileage to have Transmission issues. Its primarily my wife's daily driver, and she's pretty easy on the car. Any thoughts or suggestions on where to look is much appreciated.
 
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#3 ·
Thanks for the quick response, and for the tech sheet. I have an obdii bluetooth dongle, so I was able to try the first two steps with it, but not the tct speed sensor. Doing a little bit of research it seems I need a cable for FreeSSM, the bluetooth one doesn't work.

I finally gave up and made the fatal mistake of taking it to the dealership. At first they gave the car back and told me they couldn't replicate it. Of course on the way home it threw the code again, so my wife took it back. Then today they called and said it needs a new transmission and gave the explanation that two lines (can't remember which ones) were leaking and the transmissions gone because it was loosing fluid. This didn't seem right to me since I just changed the fluid, and have checked the level both before and after several times -- it was never low.

So after thinking that was BS, I got a recommendation for a local transmission shop. We called them and they seem pretty confident its just a sensor. Just dropped it off there tonight, so should know better tomorrow. I'll post an update when I find out.
 
#4 ·
Transmission failure at 85k

Latest update on this.

The trans shop I took it to had a hard time getting it to reproduce the error. I gave them the OK to let one of the master mechanics take it home to see if it would happen on a long drive. Sure enough it did. They called the next day and said they were a little bit baffled by the fact it was so intermittent, that if it did this all the time they would say it was definitely would be internal to the trans and they had a few ideas they wanted to track down. Over two days they ruled out all the sensors, and it came to either the clutch pack or the solenoid that controls the clutch pack. On Monday they swapped a solenoid to test the suspect one, but they said it didn't resolve the issue. So I'm told the only possibility left was the clutch pack, and I'm looking at an overhaul.

At 85k, I'm not to happy with having the trans failing. We've changed the ATF fluid at the service intervals, and are rarely even accelerate hard.. so I guess it was probably a faulty part. I haven't been able to find anyone with a similar story, so feel free to chime in.
 
#5 ·
Finally got my XT back today after the overhaul and $3800 later. The 2-4 clutch pack was worn, though they said they've seen worse. Also, the thrust bearing in the high clutch hub was shot (which probably caused the clutch pack to wear to accelerate). You can see the wear on the bearing in the pictures below.





If you were interested this manual show's the assembly on page 14.

The shop was at a loss on why it failed prematurely. I couldn't find anyone else with a similar problem. I probably just lost the draw on early mechanical failure. Hopefully this helps someone in the future since the few posts I found with similar issues had no follow-up responses.
 
#7 ·
Auto tans went out on my 95 T-bird at 66K miles, and I was pissed. Changed the trans fluid every 30k miles. After the dealer rebuild at $2500 I never changed the fluid again and ran it to 225K miles until the rest of the car fell apart.

Sometimes that stuff just happens.
 
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