Sluggish gear change
 

I have just driven a 1997 UK SVX. It is in generally good condition. But, on accelerating from rest it does appear very sluggish. If you floor the throttle is accelerates very well - no problem. But, under gentle acelerator pressure it seems very reluctant to gather speed. All the gearbox changes are smooth, and no more jerky than either of my previous SVXs have been. Putting it onto the economy setting makes no difference.
What are the symptoms of the general gearbox malaise that affects SVXs; is this a typical symptom or could this be something entirely different?

If there is no reving, or binding between changes, and it selects D or R from N or P, within a second or so, the box would seem to be ok. The sluggish acceleration may be engine tune related.

Harvey.;)

I have now bought the 1997 SVX and driven it a lot more. The transmission is not as good as my previous SVXs. When accelerating from rest it appears to hold on to the lower gears before changing up. So, you can be accelerating gradually, but need more power to clear a junction or similar and it really takes its time to change down - much more so than my other SVXs. The engine appears to be in good tune and delivers the power as and when required. I was thinking of taking it to an auto gearbox shop that I used for my earlier SVX just to see what they think. I have seen some threads that suggest that the bands can be adjusted for earlier SVXs, but possibly not for '97 models. What adjustments are there? Anything else apart from the bands? I plan to run the diagnostics for the gearbox and ECU some time later on today.

I still don't really understand, you say it seems reluctant to change up, holding onto lower gears for longer than you would like, but then say that it's reluctant to change down too, well, if it hasn't changed up to a higher gear, why should you expect it to change down?

If you give the throttle a hefty prod, it should promptly change down and illuminate the POWER indicator on the dashboard too. If, on the other hand, you gently apply just a little bit more throttle when the car is in top gear then I would not expect the box to immediately change down. A little more explanation might help me understand your problem, if indeed, you have one.

Automatic gearboxes are almost always in the wrong gear as they still cannot read the driver's intentions. For example, I really would love the box on my '97 UK model to lock-up in top gear much more readily than it does most of the time.

I'm guessing that your POWER indicator is not flashing at startup, so it would appear that your gearbox control unit is perfectly happy with the situation.

I would not advise touching the brake band adjustment, it seems fine as it is. Tightening up the adjustment will give you more violent shifts, loosening the adjustment will result in very leisurely shifts with the revs rising in the middle of the shift (called 'flaring'). Flaring prematurely wears out the brake bands and contaminates the transmission fluid. Neither adjustment will affect when the gearbox decides to change gear.

Bearing in mind that I am not convinced that you've got a fault at all, then the obvious first thing to do is to examine the state of the transmission fluid, it should be clean, a nice red colour and not smell 'funny'.

Other than that, the only other source of your possible problem I can think of, is that one of the inputs to the transmission control unit is wrong, pehaps the TPS (throttle position sensor).

My considered advice is that if it ain't broke don't fix it.

You are right - I have confused things. What I was trying to say was that the gearchange seemed much more liesurely than my previous SVXs. I drove it for about 150 miles on Wednesday and I did not feel comfortable with it; it seemed to be reluctant to change down a gear unless I really floored the accelerator when the downshift was almost immediate. But, gentle prodding of the accelerator gave to very leisurely progress and sometimes it felt like it was reluctant to accelerate and just slowly gathered speed. Having driven two other SVXs, the gearchange seemed very different. Perhaps this is because the JDM were in 'economy' by default whereas the UK SVX is in 'power' by default. But, the feel of the JDM machines in power is very different from that of the UK machine in 'normal' mode.
I took it for a short run this morning, and it felt better - perhaps the 'problems' I am seeing only appear when it is warm.
I have run the diagnostics on the transmission and they show nothing wrong Perhaps it is my perception.
However, I will check the fluid as you suggest and maybe have it changed anyway, just in case.

Perhaps the TPS is out of spec?

What's the TPS? Sorry, it will probably be obvious.

TPS = Throttle Position Sensor

AHA;) ;) ;) !

So we are comparing the UK models with the JDM models. They are not the same, refer to this thread to become throughly confused http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/show...ersion+gearbox

The bottom line is that the JDM transmission is meant to behave differently to the UK transmission. The big giveaway is the fact that the JDM transmission has a POWER button, which in the UK model is replaced with an ECONOMY button (but as the quoted thread shows, it's much more complicated than that!!).

I'm more and more convinced that it ain't broke and that you shouldn't try to fix it:eek:

I checked the TPS and the voltage was spot on.
Next thing I did was to reset the ECu/TCU by disconnecting the battery. This has made a huge difference and the car now drives like a real SVX. There are still some minor niggles, but I do not believe there is anything major wrong.
Pete - you were right!