And finally an update after months :


I have been looking around to find another valve body to rebuild and found one from a junkyard. I have been getting many other parts from there for my X5 anyway. I also built my own vacuum testing device to be able to test things properly.


I rebuilt the valve body with the kit I had bought some time ago and vacuum tested the areas RRPhil showed me and everything looked good. I replaced the valve body with the one I had on the car and I still have the same issues. So it is obviously not the valve body at this point that causes the delayed engagement issues. Car still has no engagement issues sometimes (meaning it does not engage at all once in a while) but once it engages after several shifting up and down manually (1 to 4 then back to 1 usually helps) I can drive without any issues for the rest of the day which still makes me believe there is a pressure issue.


What else could be the problem? The fluid / filter combination can cause this? I have been using a Duralast filter (and Castrol Transmax import fluid) and I saw some people had problems with that filter or any other non-original one. Would an original Filtran filter make a big difference?



Also, is it possible to measure the pressure inside the transmission somehow?


I am aware that I may have to eventually look into rebuilding my transmission but until then I would like to eliminate every possible issue.


Need more feedback please..


Thanks,


Ozzie

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X5 4.4 01