T5, auto hesitates changing into 4th gear then clunk

[Sunny43.5]

Sadly it's a common problem to T5 autos (it's actually a Japanese box). If you ever visit a dealer and mention you wish to trade it in on a new van the first question they will ask is "what's the transmission like"?

As you have been told the transmission was never included in the factory stipulated scheduled servicing. Mine went after I actually asked the dealer to service it and very soon after it made the flaring change and slammed into the next gear like I had been rammed from behind.

I could make it improve slightly by resetting the shift program as described in one of the tech section here put up by Transporter however eventually the dealer replaced it under warranty. It happened again on the replacement at around 250,000km and when it finally got bad enough I bought a new van from Renault...

Sadly your story is the same as ours , dealer would not service it etc and yes the mongrel dealer took one look at our perfect looking van with only 120.000kays when we tried to trade it in and said its an auto I wouldn,t trust it . So a $50000 van depreciated to a $4000 trade in value because of VW,s bad design .

[Rebuild]

ImmortalT5
I'd try and get another shops' opinion, before you commit to anything.
If it's solenoids only, shouldn't cost 2.5K

[ImmortalT5]

Hey rebuild,
Still in shop but I need it for work so I am just getting the gearbox rebuild done,
Valve body and needs some cylinder or something too that makes the clutch system work inside it
So not sure if they are ripping me off or not, I haven’t seen any paperwork because I dropped it off after hours
It’s going to cost $5.5k-$6.5k all up for about a weeks work or rebuilding it
Is there any way to tell what has been done is what they say they did?
I don’t want to be ripped off

[Tornado T5]

Sadly your story is the same as ours , dealer would not service it etc and yes the mongrel dealer took one look at our perfect looking van with only 120.000kays when we tried to trade it in and said its an auto I wouldn,t trust it . So a $50000 van depreciated to a $4000 trade in value because of VW,s bad design .

It's actually a Japanese Aisin auto box but I feel your pain.

[Tornado T5]

Hey rebuild,
Still in shop but I need it for work so I am just getting the gearbox rebuild done,
Valve body and needs some cylinder or something too that makes the clutch system work inside it
So not sure if they are ripping me off or not, I haven’t seen any paperwork because I dropped it off after hours
It’s going to cost $5.5k-$6.5k all up for about a weeks work or rebuilding it
Is there any way to tell what has been done is what they say they did?
I don’t want to be ripped off

If you search the net and YouTube on this issue there is an enormous amount of info particularly from the US where they have experienced this issue in a different version of this auto in the VW car range as the T5 was never sold in the US. Some videos show you how to even change the valve body yourself.
One thing I discovered is the replacement valvebody can have much improved internals resulting in a much better overall auto once repaired.