My New To Me 2003 X5 4.4-With ATX Issues

[X53Jay4.8is]

Originally Posted by tempest411

What would anyone else do? A shop looked at it and stated the valve body is at fault. That only means so much. I can replace the valve body and have the same problem, as the shop's tech could be wrong. The next step would then be to do the transmission internals. It doesn't really matter what's wrong in the transmission at that point, because once you've got it out, you're replacing a whole list of standard wear items. No one tears apart a transmission and just replaces the one part that failed and ignores everything else that has 100K+ miles on it, so the parts cannon is not really applicable here. Of course all this is premature, as the first thing I have to do is check the fluid level and obtain some way of looking at the DTCs stored in the DME.

Of course even if I get really lucky and find that the only thing going on is a low fluid level caused by a leaking transmission cooler, I'm still going to switch out the valve body as they are a documented source of problems in these transmissions, and not hard to do. If accessible from the back side without removing the transmission, I may even try and replace the 'F' clutch piston that is said to fail causing a loss of reverse gear. I'll also install a longer front drive shaft, and a new chain in the transfer case. These are all easy jobs that will provide peace of mind as my wife will be using it as a daily driver.

This is going to be your wife's daily driver?????? wow