[Gcsillaz]

Hello everyone!

Recently I've purchased an 1998 328i sedan with the zf5hp19 transmission that goes into limp mode intermitently... It is totally random. In six months it did around 2 or 3 times. Simply turning off the car and restarting makes the limp mode go away.

I went to find what was happening, on INPA it says that it was torque converter slipage, but digging a little further I believe that this is due to the temperature sensor in the harness not working.

I let my car parked for around 1 week without running and when looking on INPA the gearbox temp it showed around 240°F (~110°C) which makes no sense.
Measured the pins on the ECU connector and found that the sensor is "open" (pins 21-22) giving me infinite resistance, thus, leading to this max temperature reading.

Already tried reconnecting the connectors to no avail. Them only two options left now which I'd like to know if someone as a clue to help me see what would be best.

1 - Leave as it is

2 - Change the harness

Has someone seem this problem before? For what I saw on videos I would need to drop the valve body due to one solenoid which stays behind it. I'm not confortable to take transmission out of the car but I would try only the valve body, question is... is it possible to drop the valve body and remove/reinstall a new harness without taking the transmission out?

What would be the consequences of leaving this as it is besides the intermitent limp mode? could this cause damage to the transmission?

Thanks a lot in advance!
Gabriel

 

[Gcsillaz]

Nobody?

 

[Ekendall325i]

All I know is I have a 2001 with the exact same transmission and I continue to drive it when it was randomly go into limp Mode after a while trying to fix it not knowing why it was doing it but yes eventually the transmission completely went out on me so I wouldn’t recommend driving it that much with it doing that but then had the transmission rebuilt with a new valve body and still annoyed in it and I’m still having the same problem now as well it really sucks if you have figured anything out please let me know as well I’m looking for the exact symptoms and how to fix it I mean exactly doing the same thing as yours

 

[MrMCar]

I've not seen a harness temperature sensor related issue cause this.
What is the code and description from the EGS?

 

[Gcsillaz]

Hi Everyone!
The error was torque converter slipping, mostly. But sometimes other errors showed up. I did a oil change and upon removal the fill plug with cold car lots of oil drained… it seems old owner put too much oil. After the exchange with new filter, I’ve been running without problems. Even though my trans still shows high temp due to bad temp sensor in the harness, but limp mode did not show up again.

 

[MrMCar]

The 323 & 328 have a standard torque converter (non locking) installed.
If the converter is slipping, it should set a "Gear Monitoring" fault.

Gear monitoring = XXX RPM input, should equal XXX speed out of the transmission.
(engine speed = input)
If the numbers are outside the parameters, something is slipping and a fault will show.

 

[Gcsillaz]

Mine is 328 AM51 europe.
If the error comes up again I will post here.
Otherwise during preventive maintenance I will get the shadow errors and post here too.