Transmission 'rattle' when cold

[trapdoor]

Noticed an unpleasant rattle over the past few days now the weather in the UK has got colder. Basically when starting from cold (overnight say), the car starts fine. But on selecting Reverse or Drive, there is a nasty sounding rattle - it goes when selecting P or N, but as soon as R or D is selected, it comes back.

Car (2004 3.0i sport) drives OK, and it has just been in to the dealer to have the Transmission software updated due to the holding gears issue.

Anyone know what this is likely to be? Is it terminal? Could it be due to low transmission oil levels, crap in the oil, something about to break etc?

Damned car has been at the dealers more than i've had it, and they seem spectacularly good at not diagnosing or finding faults - the climate display blanking out is still there after 4 times back for the problem. They refuse to change the climate display module until a hard fault code shows up

[Wagner]

Hmm, it could be a lot of things. How many miles on the vehicle? Does it sound internal to the transmission or just something rattling around?

Transmissions are prone to some issues on the X (you can find more on this by searching the site). Does this issue resolve itself if you drive the car and then hop back in?

If so, I would start with the fluid as the issue and work my way from there.

[trapdoor]

Car has 40,000 miles on it. Seems only to do it when the engine/tranny is cold. However, because when you are in the car, you can't really hear it, it's not easy to say.

The only reason I noticed it was because I was parked in the garage, had my window down to pop the mirror back (don't have electric folding mirrors!) and started up and selected R without winding the window up. Thought "what the hell is that noise", and put it into P again and it stopped.

I fiddled around with the selector and found it only did it when in R or D, not N or P.

However when I have put the car into the garage after a journey, I don't notice it, but it'spossible (likely) that it's only just started to happen since the temperature outside has got winterish (finally).

[AzNMpower32]

Happened to our X3 before, but for some reason that was a couple years ago in the winter. It could be the belt tensioner.

Previously, this occured in the winter with out X3 in our garage. Upon the first start up and putting it into R, it would emit loud clattering and squealing. I would say "cold weather", but now I actually park the X3 outside on the streets, which theroetically subjects it to harsher condtions. And it doesn't rattle anymore like it used to. Really peculiar, it seems like my X3 is actually more reliable as time goes on. (knock on wood) Sorry, can't be of more help.

[primetime]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

Happened to our X3 before, but for some reason that was a couple years ago in the winter. It could be the belt tensioner.

Previously, this occured in the winter with out X3 in our garage. Upon the first start up and putting it into R, it would emit loud clattering and squealing. I would say "cold weather", but now I actually park the X3 outside on the streets, which theroetically subjects it to harsher condtions. And it doesn't rattle anymore like it used to. Really peculiar, it seems like my X3 is actually more reliable as time goes on. (knock on wood) Sorry, can't be of more help.

I know exactly what you're talking about..How did you stop the noise?

[AzNMpower32]

Originally Posted by primetime

I know exactly what you're talking about..How did you stop the noise?

lol I have no idea.