Hello,
I have searched alot of posts but not found my answer. My 1994 540i with 5 speed ZF A/T shows the following behavior. This is an intermittent problem:

Shift lever position = Car behavior
Reverse = Reverse
Neutral = Reverse
Any forward gear = Feels like reverse and drive.

Under the last scenario, car will creep forward under throttle, but feels like it is fighting itself.

When I slide the A/M switch to M, the car "unbinds" and moves forward normally, and I can use gears 2-5 manually. Creeping along very slowly in M2, if I slide the switch back to A, the car downshifts to 1, and about a second later, it binds and comes to a halt.

I changed out the tranny fluid (using the correct BMW fluid), filter, cleaned the magnet. Other than 11 years of accumulated metal powder on the magnet and bottom of the pan, I saw nothing alarming, except the wiring pigtail coming out of the tranny was damp.

Upon start-up, the car ran fine during a 20min. test drive. This morning, it reverted back to its bizarre behavior.

I have no Trans Program message.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any help will certainly be appreciated.

Thanks, Kevin

Hm.. I've never heard of anything like this before, but here's what the Bently manual suggests:

Irregular drive in all forewad gears: ATF fluid low (probably not, since you just changed it) ATF Pump strainer (filter) partially clogged
Transmission range switch faulty
Internal damage


Does the car idle high?

Car idles fine. I missed the "transmission range switch faulty" diagnosis in my Bentley manual. I'll have to check that out. It acts like the transmission is receiving conflicting instructions, and trying to do two things at once (reverse and forward).

Thanks, Kevin

I may be wrong, but that sounds like the valve body problem the ZFs have.

Contact Kirk Koeller, he's a ZF expert and will know what the problem is.
I think these are his numbers.
(616)748-5735 or (800)624-3876

Bob

Kevin,

What was the fix ? My '94 540i has the exact same problem right now !!!

It is the valve body problem. It acts like reverse is on all the time. Look up Uriah's threads on the topic. There is also an excellent writeup on rebuilding the valve body on Shogun's website.

Well my problem was with the car on jack stands shifting was fine. once on the groud it would shift 4-5k rpm in all gears 1-4. and no dash warnings. I was told my a tech that if it's mechanical you might not get a dash light warning. may need sensors or minor switches. It turned out that my torque convertor and my solenoids where bad contaminated from years of metal shavings. like the other guy said you might have to get a pro to look at it, it's a 50/50 I paid 3500k for my rebuild and now she is running perfect. I was told that if I ran it for a few more 5-30 miles I would have killed it. the good thing about the 530i or ZF trans. The engine goes into limp mode preventing you from adding more pressure to the transmission that it can handle at that time.

Reply to raypon:

Contact Kirk Koeller, he's a ZF expert and will know what the problem is.
I think these are his numbers.
(616)748-5735 or (800)624-3876

I purchased a rebuilt valve body from Kirk. He's a straight up guy. It was about $500 as I recall. Get a filter, gasket, & fluid ($$$ouch!) from your dealer, or maybe Kirk can sell it to you. Keep everything very clean. Hope this helps.

Kevin

...... I paid 3500k for my rebuild ....

damn, for tha tmuch money, you could have bought two used transmissions.....

Yep, two transmissions that are about to have the same problem. ;-)