2007 VW Jetta Wolfsburg Slips Shifting Up

Let’s get done with the most pressing news first. Your transmission needs help as it is beginning to fail and it needs to be replaced. You actually have three options here. You can replace it with a new transmission which will cost you between $2,500 and $3,000. The second option is obtaining a working transmission in good condition from a wrecked Wolfsburg in a local salvage yard which will cost roughly $2,000 with labor. Your third alternative is having the existing transmission rebuilt, just replacing the failed units. That should cost about $1,500 to $1,800.

Notice the words “should cost.” The reason those two words are there is just this, if you decide to have your transmission rebuilt, you are at the mercy of whatever the gods of transmissions have done to your vehicle. From your description, it sounds as if there could be a problem in the valve body as some of the galleries may be sludged up and the transmission’s fluid is being distributed quite unevenly. This can, in turn, expose your clutch packs, gears and bands to low-high or high-low automatic transmission fluid conditions. In other words, some of the devices are being fed too much fluid while others are starved. Is this possible? Yes, it is. The reason goes to the heart of how a transmission works. If you think of a transmission as a device full of gears and things that is constantly swimming in a bath of fluid that is being circulated around the case then you have a good idea of what goes on inside the, in your Jetta’s case, transaxle.

More specifically, the transmission circulates as a result of the torque converter which pushes the transmission fluid in the proper manner so that the right gears are selected in the proper order. The torque converter is the start of the process as the fluid then flows through the valve body to the clutch packs, bands and gearing. The order in which the solenoids in the valve body trip determines the precise flow of transmission fluid into the right series of devices so the tranny works correctly.

Notice the number of systems involved in moving your Jetta from Point A to Point B. Replacing them individually can, oftentimes, be more expensive than just buying a rebuilt replacement transmission or obtaining one from a salvage yard.