Villian

A good friend is borrowing my pepper to pick up a horse she's rescuing in Florida and transporting back to Montana, but 700 miles into the trip the transmission has begun slipping and now seemingly failed altogether. The car is stuck near Chamberlain and in the process of being towed to a nearby service station, however I do not know if there's much of anything they're going to be able to do with it. I chose to forgo the trip to work this week, but is there anyone in the area who might be able to lend a hand, or any help of any kind? I feel horrible that my friend, and two friends of hers are stuck in the middle of nowhere right now due to my cars failure. My car has been an otherwise amazing vehicle! I've racked up nearly 30k miles this year alone

function12

You might look to see if there is a local PCA club and reach out to some in the club via their website.

Villian

Good idea. I'll have to check. Transmission is shot. My friends are car (truck) shopping. Looks like I'll be trailering back my car sometime in the near future for a new tranny

Dan87951

How many miles are on your Cayenne? Did they notice any fluid leaking?

AGARubberDuck

I'm not sure I've ever heard of a tranny failing on these. Valve body perhaps? Keep the forum updated for sure.

v10rick

Total transmission failure is unusual. Any warning messages before it died? Smoke?

A trans seal let go on my 04CS which left me stranded. No warning messages, just a trail of smoke.
Replaced seal, filled with fluid and was good until sold.

bweSteve

aaaand Then it blew up. Good timing on the sale Rick!! ... just kidding

but seriously Villian, don't let them just blanket say the tranny is "shot" & needs to be replaced. You are right to tow it back to your home town & get your own service guys to look at it.

oh, and ONLY have it flat bed towed. Do not allow them to dolly tow by 2 wheels!!

Best of luck.
=Steve

cordsig79

Yeah, I have replaced all ancillary prone to failure parts 2-3 times over or more and still not killed anything.

shafts (never blew up the gears or tranny from the failure point being the bearing)
Valve body ( wears out but rip and replace and good fluid habits it trucks along)
Gaskets (Texas heat and mild winters eventually wear them down)
blower motors (Texas heat, plastic, and bearings)

A decent wholesale rebuild of aisin is about 3k too, so dont throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Or let me know a price

v10rick

Steve the Euro Indy shop test drove the CS after the gasket fix. Using a stethoscope insisted they were hearing signs of cavitation and wanted to flush the transmission, at $100/qt plus whatever else. Thinking they were confusing this with sounds of a cash register I declined. They required that I sign a waver releasing them of any liability. Put another 30K mi on the CS, that sounded perfectly normal to me, then sold it.

DWPC

Looks like there's a VW dealer in Rapid City. Are there enough similarities between a 955 transmission and a VW Touareg that a VW dealer in SD could check it without flatbedding it all the way back to Montana?

cordsig79

TL; DR, Yes....it's similar and rebuilds/parts easy to source.

Google keep notes

The Japanese company AISIN Co., LTD is the manufacturer and developer of the Rear Wheel Drive TR60SN transmission, which is a 6 speed, fully automatic and electronic controlled transmission. Volkswagen engineers were also involved, in conjunction with Aisin, in the development process for their vehicles and Volkswagen gave it the "09D" designation. The TR60SN, 09D transmission is used in a wide variety of applications and engine sizes. As a result, the number of friction plates, and planetary gears (3 or 4 pinion), will vary depending on torque load requirements of the specific vehicle. The TR60SN transmission uses a gear ratio sensitive system, requiring the correct transmission interchange. The TR60-SN is currently used in the Porsche Cayenne, Volkswagen Touareg, and Audi Q7 vehicles. The 09D transmission uses a Lepelletier arrangement, using a simple planetary coupled with a Ravigneaux type, dual planetary. This is the same type of gear set that was used in the FMX. This arrangement makes six forward speeds and reverse possible, with only five clutch packs and one freewheel. This manual contains the procedures necessary to diagnose, rebuild and/or repair the TR60SN "09D" transmission and is intended for automotive technicians that are familiar with the operation of automatic transmissions. 09 09A (JF506E) 09D (TR-60SN) 09E (ZF6HP26) 09G 09G (TF-60SN) 09K (TF-60SN) 09L (TR-60SN) 09L (ZF6HP19) 09M (TF-60SN)

Villian

Time for an update! The three people who were stranded after the cars failure bought a new truck at a dealership in SD to finish the trip to Florida and back. I picked the Cayenne up and towed it back with another Cayenne a week after my original post. The car has roughly 140k miles, and the symptoms were that the transmission would slip and totally disengage momentarily, before reengaging with a harsh, quick catch. I just got enough time this weekend to finally drain out the transmission and pull the pan. The following pics show what I found! What do you guys think? Any idea what I'm looking at here?






And the obligatory towing a Cayenne with a Cayenne pictures...







Notice something funny there? Yep, we've both experienced transmission failures now and towed each others cars for the same reason, but at different times! Ironically enough.

deilenberger

I think aliens have taken over your transmission. I can't recall ever seeing anything quite that ugly, but if that picture was taken out of context (not in this thread) and just shown standing alone - I bet almost anyone would agree with me.

I believe it's new transmission time. A change of fluid is not going to fix what's wrong with that transmission.

AGARubberDuck

Should have bought my '04 tt a couple years back when you were looking :P

I'm sort of glad you didn't though, I'd be rolling in a GM now.

Villian

I already had my Cayenne at that point

You're thinking of my friend.. who ironically picked one up that ended up needing a transmission lol