Who is not curious to read the  TLTR (to long to read) version of this, I am happy to announce that the “gearbox” issue of Xavier is now fixed. It was indeed the torque converter.

How it presented itself: we could drive the car smoothly and without any problems on the highway*, no gliches in gear changing, slower or higher speed everything was good. But if we had to come to a full stop, the car more often than not started shaking, trembling and the engine stopped entirely. Didn’t happened when the engine was cold, but more and more when it was in running temperature. Sometimes we could idle waiting at a stop sign without the engine stopping, sometimes not. 

What was the solution: we sent the second hand torque converter to Malaga, to a specialist recommended by a fellow spanish C6 enthusiast.  (contact details in private if anybody is interested). The torque converter was reviewed before being installed. The small but awesome service (Autopla) was able to change the torque converter and we used the car for over a week now, driving it back and forth, stopping and doing exactly how you drive the car, and no sign of the previous issue whatsoever.

What’s next: In the near future we are going to send the original torque converter to Malaga to the same specialist for a review. Supposedly (thanks Ignacio!!!) there is a bearing inside the torque converter that can break and have this behaviour. Xavier still needs a lot of work like timing belt change, some coolant pipe changes and whatnot but we are very happy to get to this point.

The long story

It’s not a secret that we bought Maudette because my husband liked this car very very much, and long time ago we realized that Life is to short to drive a Polo, we jumped ship and bought Maudette. But once we had Maudette, we realized how incredibly rare these cars are, and we decided to buy a second one mostly for parts. Xavier was fairly cheap, was running, had the issue with the torque converter, had a second hand gearbox with torque converter in the booth, so we figured worth a try. We drove it home, no issues, but parked in an underground parking for the time being.

Since it was not a rush to fix it right away, the process to narrow down the issue started. Talking with fellow C6 enthusiasts, reading about the possible solutions we got more confused day after day 😀 Some were saying, it´s indeed the torque converter, BUT it should have some other symptoms. Other said it could be the valve block too,  A gearbox repair shop in Valencia give us a quote for the full repair, and it was more than we bought the whole car for. They guaranteeed the repair, with parts and everything… but it was not the path we wanted to take.  The quote was fair, they explained as well that it could be this, or that or both or who knows, we surely are going to pay only for the fix they need to do on the car, but the maximum amount was huge so we searched for other solutions.

First step was to check the valve box on the second hand gearbox e already had: Wanted to see if the Converter Lock Up Solenoid walve is not having issues.  There was this idea that the metal sleeve of the solenod could be scratched and causing the shakes. It was worth the effort…

So one afternoon, we were allowed in the otherwise closed shop and checked the valve block according to this video:

Carrefully removed the black cover, disconnected the wires, and removed some of the solenoids. There were deep scratches inside the metal sleeve so we didn´t wanted to risk putting this in the car and making things worse.

Step two was the torque converter. Since we had no history about the part, I insisted that we send this part to a specialized shop before considering to install it. I wanted to be sure to install a GOOD PART, and reduce the number of possible causes in case it´s not the torque converter.

We were recommended a torque converter repair shop in Malaga: ACS Convertidores.

The process was simple:  the torque converter from the second hand gearbox was sent to ACS Convertidores, they revewed it, we paid, and they sent it back. After this was installed in Xavier and the ¨gearbox issue” was fixed.

This was a while ago, namely in 2022 December. We are now in 2025, and I can safely say, that Xavier has OTHER issues still, but none of them is related with the torque converter or the behaviour it had before it was changed.