Help! V8 Vantage won't shift out of neutral
 

First off, hello! I bought my dream car about a week ago. It's a 2009 V8 Vantage coupe in Meteorite Silver with 29k miles. I've wanted one since I was 14, and never would have thought I'd be able to afford one 10 years later. I think it's one of the most beautiful cars produced in the last 20 years, along with the Alfa 8C. My parents have a few Jaguars (both classic and modern) so I think I have reasonable expectations when it comes to maintenance -- I know looking after it will be more involved than, say, a Camry.

Prior to my purchase, the owner had his independent mechanic do a ton of work to the car to the tune of $10k (all in the last 600 miles of ownership):

- Clutch replacement
- Flywheel replacement
- Slave cylinder replacement
- Both exhaust manifold gaskets
- Transmission controller module replacement (and reflash by AM dealer)
- Oxygen sensor replacement
- New set of Michelin Pilot Super Sports
- Four wheel alignment

Up until today, the car has driven as well as any other Sportshift model I've driven. I usually wait 20-30 seconds so it can do the clutch learn, and I only drive it in manual mode after being warned about "D" by the dealer. I had no issues during the test drive, pulls well up hills, etc. I have reversed up small hills twice, but I can't imagine that doing that TWICE would have much of an impact on the clutch.

I had a PPI done at Aston Martin Summit (in NJ) and they confirmed that the car was in solid mechanical condition. I wasn't present for the inspection, but I looked over the report which gave the car a clean bill of health (except for a leaky air-oil separator, easy job) and said that neither the gearbox nor any other powertrain component were throwing codes.

--- Fast forward to today ---

I'm home visiting my parents and my dad announces a need to go to the bank. I'm excited about the new car, so I offer to drive him in the Aston. Drive there was uneventful, drive back was not. I was going down a hill in 4th and got three chimes from the car, along with a message on the gauge cluster: "Fault: No gear change possible." It stayed in 4th until I slowed down to make a turn, at which point it shifted into neutral and won't shift into any of the drive gears or reverse.

Turning the car on/off doesn't resolve the problem (not even temporarily). Also, the error comes on the screen without even turning the car on-- all you have to do is insert the key. I had it towed from the side of the road to my house.

Seems like this error isn't very common, a search doesn't yield much. One person said that reseating the cables going to the transmission module resolved it for them, which I plan to try tomorrow.

Has anyone had a similar experience / does anybody have any suggestions of things to try before I take it to an independent or the dealer?


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Nick

Sorry I can't help you as I have a manual

Hope someone comes along soon to help you out

Graze

Thankfully, this ended up being a lot simpler than I thought it would be. I had visions of a defective clutch, fried TCU, etc. It was fuse #8 in the trunk-- the fuse that runs the Sportshift pump.

I'll have to start diving into why that happened if it ends up blowing again. For now, VERY happy that it wound up being an $0.80 fuse and not a $5k clutch replacement.

Nick, that's great to hear! Welcome to the club.

Is it possible the wrong fluid viscosity got installed when all the work was done causing the pump to work harder

Sorry to hear about your trouble but it's nice to see it on the road with that fluffy white layer.

I suppose so. I'll look into this if it happens again. For now, I drive around with a few spare 30A fuses in my trunk :)

May have nothing to do with AM, but in the ferrari world when the transmission pump's fuse blow, its due to the pump being over worked. Partly due to the fuse being way underrated (ferrari's fault), also due to the pump either failing or the system not holding the pressure properly.

Since most single clutch semi auto work in similar ways, may be worth getting it checked out vs. constantly replacing blown fuse.

Congrats on the car, and sorry to hear about your troubles - good thing was it just a fuse to fix the issue, and welcome to the forum!

I'd check the maintenance records and see what kind of gear oil was used in the transaxle. If they put an LS oil into it, it's probably too thick and is causing the system to work too hard - the issues mkzhang mentioned in the post above.

I'd also check when the transmission-related replacement items you mentioned in the maintenance that were done by the previous owner and see if those correlate to a gear oil change. It might help confirm (or disprove) the gear oil being the root cause. Either way, if there's an LS oil in the gearbox, I'd recommend replacing it with a non-LS version as soon as you can.

Nice car ! it works for me. welcome to the fold, my car is the same colour

What is all that white stuff around your car?

Thanks for the welcomes, guys. It's currently in the shop for a couple other things (AOS starting to leak, brake pads) and I let them know about the issue / asked them to have a look at the ASM pump system. They also thought gearbox oil viscosity was a potential issue.

This guy (on a German AM forum) had the same issue.

Cocaine.

Nick,
have the shop check the ASM pump relay... I've seen them stick on and cause excessive pump operation, which can pop the fuse. -Tim

Indeed, doing just that. Called the dealer and they said the relays "only last about 3 years" and also told us to check the lines to/from the ASM fluid reservoir. Apparently they can deteriorate over time and occasionally clog the ASM pump.

The explanation you provided sounds the most in-line with what i'm experiencing, however.

I got the same message 'Fault no gear change possible' one week after buying my 2012 V8VS with 21k miles and SportShift II. Only the car was parked in my garage with a puddle of clutch fluid and would not even start (stuck in first gear). The issue was a deteriorated clutch line that runs down the center of the car front to back, so I can vouch for the transmission lines not aging well. Glad your repair was much cheaper than mine!

Interesting. If you don't mind me asking, what did the repair run you, and what was done?

I don't think that's my issue, since the car shifted fine after replacing the fuse, but I'm curious to see another data point.