I have a 52 Vauxhall Vectra 2.2 Automatic.
Recently I have experienced the strangest fault. When driving along, the car will seem normal, and then the enging light and the spanner symbol appear. When you put it over to manual the 5 will appear, however when you try and kick down a gear with either the pedal or the manual lever, it stays in 5th gear. When you stop, you have 2 choices, 5th and 2nd. When changing between these gears it is very aggressive and jirky.
When you stop the car, switch it off and wait for while, you can then start it and the spanner disappears, however the engine light stays on. If the gearbox goes up through the gears with no issues the enging light goes out, however at times it jumps to 5th and will continue to stay in 5th until you intervene with the manual lever.
Everytime I get it booked in, it has cleared itself, however when I try to drive it within a couple of days it will have done it again.
Anyone have any idea what is happening? The Garage said the spanner is related to a broken exhaust, which is about to be replace, however could this have caused the "limp mode"
Edited by Pugugly on 18/01/2009 at 10:07
|
Hi,
The automatic box is going into limp home mode, this is what the symbol with spanner means.
It could be a senser fault or it could be coolant mixing with the transmission oil. There is a well known issue with this as the seal is weak.
Vauxhall did a recall on this, to replace the seal. Your car may have been missed.
If you want any more info, try the Vectra C Forum, I am also sure that Dynamic Dave will be along who may be able to explain further.
Regards
|
|
dont worry that the light has gone out, the codes will be stored in the memory, the light comeing on is a warning that some thing is wrong, should explain more in the owners manual,
|
|
|
I am also sure that Dynamic Dave will be along who may be able to explain further.
As has already been said. Car/spanner light is indicating limp home mode. It serves 3 functions:- engine electronics fault, autobox fault, and immobiliser fault.
I would have thought the emissions light (engine block symbol) would have come on if it has an exhaust problem.
As topbloke has said, the codes should be stored in the memory of the ecu.
|
Thanks for all your help on this,
Dave - the orange engine light on the bottom right corner did come on also.
I have taken to car to a couple of garages, and none of them even suggested that the 2nd/5th limitations could be a limp home mode, I assumed that as the box runs fine before and after it has been switched off.
Again, thanks and I will let you know if it ends up being something other than the exhaust...
|
|
As has been suggested, check out vectra-c.com. There have been posts made on their with regard to 2nd / 5th gear problems of autoboxes.
|
Thought I would give you an update -
The coolant has been leaking into the gear box, so this has been a small bill of £2,700.
I was shocked at the amount of people that have reported problem with this, so I contacted vauxhall to make my point. They did not get my point, however confirmed that cars had a life expectancy, and due to the age of my car, it was not even worth a gesture of good will???
So from Vauxhalls own mouth, their cars are not expected to last 6 years covering 45,000 miles???
|
|
|
|
|
