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MG MGF Technical - Steptronic Gearbox Whine

I have a 2002 Steptronic with 31k on the clock. Out of the blue it has developed a whine from the gearbox. My service garage have change oil, changed filter and 'O' rings, which apparenty can cause gearbox noise. But it is still there. The box oil came out clean and no signs of contamination at all. My next step is a complete gearbox rebuild which will be ££££££ so I thought I would ask if anyone has any idea or help before we move to this stage.
aj harris

If it is more of a whirring noise then it is likely to be the oil pump bearing, replaceable but not easy to get access in a F, so costly to do.
If it is the transmission that is noisy AFAIK there are no parts available from the 'factory' to 'rebuild' so an exchange box is likely , about £2kish.
mike

Why would there be no parts available from ZF? This gear box is used in several cars (Mini, others) so spares should not be a problem?
Neil Courtney

I'll rephrase that, there are some parts available to certain repair jobs but from the information I have (the parts CD) no major parts are listed. That does not mean that a specialist transmission repairer could not source parts from other sources than the MG/Rover distributers.
Mike

Mike when you say oil pumb bearing do you mean internal gearbox oil pump? The nose does not happen in reverse or reving the engine in neutral. As soon as the car starts to apply power to the drives I get this bearing type noise, I would compare it to a wheel bearing type of grounching noise. But I would have thought that some kind of oil contamination would have been visable in the box? Next question should I put here away until I can affort the repair or is the detiriation likley to be over a long period of use? Not asking for any firm answer here, just what would you do?

Thanks for your input Mike very much appreciated
aj harris

We have two customers with this problem, one in a ZS and one in a F both sound the same and appear to be from the pump area in the gearbox. We are awaiting some special tools to allow us to undertake this so will advise more if this cures the problem. There is some further information on one of the forums that highlighted this particular noise and was fixed by this bearing replacement, parts are about £50 rest would be labour to get access,the ZS looks as though it can be tackled insitu,the F looks a bit more restricted. There was no oil contamination in the one we checked. Any noise is a failure of an internal componant and needs replacement before further damage occurs and possibly renders the box scrap.I would contact a local transmission company for a second opinion..soon.
mike

Mike

Thanks, would be really intrested in what labour costs you find on the 'F'.

Thanks
Andy
aj harris

I have owned a steptronic new from Sept 2000. The only problem I have had from the gear box was when using engine braking there was a squeaky noise from the rear. After much investigation was shown to be the 'damper plate' in the gear box. It looks like a clutch plate without the facings. This was changed (under warranty) and has not been a problem since. The garage had had this problem on an auti rover 25 as well. They showed me the old and new plates and there was no obvious differences. Unfortunately it is an engine out job. More recently had a droning sound that everbody thought was a rear wheel bearing or possible g/box fault but turned out to be the front tyres having gone oval. All as quiet as new now.
Ron Gaisford

I have a steptronic which developed a whine it turned out to be a bearing in the gearbox. Apparently quite a common fault on other cars using the CVT box. It can be replaced with the gearbox in situe. I had it done at a local gearbox specialist Hardy Engineering in Leatherhead took them a about a day. no noise since.
Tony

I quite sure it's the gear box bearing internal pumb, sound too much like it to me. Very intrested to see if this is an engine out job or in situe. If Tony's right may not be too difficult i.e. not to expensive. Only issue I have had in the three years of ownership was a fault in the engine management system, which caused the engine to lose transmission for about twenty five seconds at a time about once every six months. Took the garage about a year to find it, had three wiring harness replacenments, but that was in the golden days of warrenties!!!
aj harris

This thread was discussed between 19/05/2006 and 23/05/2006

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