Problems With Downshift to Neutral at Stop Light

Hello All,

I have a recurring problem the the F1 system in my 2008 F430. For the first fifteen minutes or so after starting up the car, everything is fine. However, after 15 minutes or so, the car will not auto downshift to 1st at a stop, it instead shifts into neutral. When this happens, the only way to get it back into gear is to turn off the car and restart it, then it goes back into gear with no issue.

Also, on two separate occasions in recent months, after about 30 minutes of driving, the car has shifted itself into neutral while doing 70 mph on the highway. The first time, I spent about 15 minutes on the side of the highway trying to get it back into gear with no luck, and had it towed. The second time, I was able to get the car into gear after a 30 minute or so cooldown.

Two independent shops with good reputations in my area were unable to find the issue, so the car was taken to Scottsdale Ferrari. They diagnosed a bad ediff control valve (solenoid) and diagnosis found that ediff duty cycle was %33 (%8 being acceptable limit). They replaced the control valve, and after repair, the duty cycle dropped to %7. I went and picked up the car today, and after 15 minutes or so on the drive home, same deal, shifted into neutral instead of 1st when coming to a stop..

This is incredibly frustrating, and now I'm running out of ideas.. I think (hope?) that there were two separate issues here, and that the part where I got stranded on the highway was caused by the pump shutting down as a protective measure, due to the high duty cycles with the bad solenoid.

Could the second issue (shift/stuck to N at stop light) be caused by something as silly as a bad brake light switch? If so, why would I be able to get into gear after restarting the car, and why would it only happen each time after the initial 15 minutes of driving?

I should add, I have already replaced the pump with the one Juri sells, as the original died while in the shop for something completely unrelated. I've also replaced the pump relay with the Scuding Swiss electronic relay.

Ideas? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, as I'm not sure where to look at this point. I do have an Xdiag Pro that I can hook up, but not sure what to look for.. I just want to be able to drive the car without worry each time if I will make it home!

 

I can relate. Spent a half year trying to diagnose my intermittent F1 shifting issue on my '06 Spider > https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/f430-f1-shifting-woes.608033/page-3#post-147060079

The symptoms were a little different, but after replacing the ediff which as in your case looked like the culprit, it turned out to be loose actuator screws that allowed air to become entrained in the hydraulic circuit. For some reason, it seems to be a fairly common problem with the 430s and few Ferrari dealers seem to consider this as a possible cause. That may not be your issue, but it's fairly easy to investigate and correct without having to buy expensive parts and might be worth a look.

 

Hey Bruce,

Thanks for the feedback! I'm pretty sure I've read your thread before. I actually called the dealer to have them check the actuator screws while they were changing the solenoid, but they had just finished up the repair and I was too late.. This may make total sense, as I first noticed this problem occurring after I replaced the pump.

Does anyone know how easy it is to get to the actuator? I feel like I remember that its not easy to get to, so it may mean another trip to the shop. Also, if it turns out that the screws are indeed loose, would I have to rebleed the lines after tightening to know if it made a difference? Also, does anyone know how tight they are supposed to be? Is it hand tighten, or a specific spec?

EDIT: Never mind, after going through your post again, I see the actuator needs to come off to see if the bleed screws are tight. Brilliant engineering!

 

Our indie did the work, but he managed it along with bleeding the system in a half day. If any of the screws are loose and you have air in the hydraulic system, then yes, it makes sense to me that you'd want to rebleed to get the air out. He said the actuator screws were easier to get to than he thought originally. My recollection was that he applied a little Loctite and hand snugged all 3 up (two were loose).

 

Could it be that a through bleeding was not done after you replaced pump ?

I would start with a through bleed including as mentioned above including doing the correct bleed in actuator (loosing screws and retighten.

But before you so that ..since you have a good tool ..why don't you spend a little time looking at the values like pressure and charting them while you are driving

Also pull any and all codes stored

Going blindly is not a good thing ..but the above suggestion and maybe an accumulator is a guess



What happens when you open doors ..how long does the motor run .. how long does it take to cycle when shifting gears (even standing still) ..also without touching anything how long does it take to cycle

How many miles do you have on car and clutch

Hopefully by give us more data above we may be able to narrow it down

Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

 

Hey Flash,

2008 F430, car has 39000 miles. Clutch/flywheel/bearing (replaced with Hill engineering bearing) were changed 3k miles ago. When I open the door, the pump only runs around 4 seconds. The system has been bled three times now, once when the pump was replaced, once to eliminate that as an issue, and just this week when they replaced the control valve at the dealer. Manual shifting seems ok when driving, shifts seem quick enough to me.

I'll work on pulling codes shortly, and I could definitely chart the values when driving, just need to figure out how to do that part.

Not sure what you mean when you ask how long it takes to cycle, can you clarify? Thanks for your help!

 

Update: two error codes, P1778 (flow/Pressure of Pump insufficient) and P0600 (CAN Error Code). I need to do some more research on how to set up the live stream, I know someone else on here has done it to monitor the F1 system so I will do some digging to see if I can find that thread..

 

Ok so the code shows us that we have pressure issue which could have been the pump and/ solenoid issue you had and no one cleared it

First suggestion .. write down the codes and then clear them to see if they repeat ..have to chase something that was already fixed ..

The item I was talking about was after you open doors and get in and just turn key on ..how long does it take to hear pump again .. also after that test ..pull back the levels to change gears and count how many it takes before you hear the pump again

Sonic it is a pressure issue there are many things that can cause it.. no specific order

Loose screws
Bad solenoids on control unit
Bad pump
Bad accumulator
Bad actuator
Bad ediff solenoid
Air in one or a few of the actuator lines

Looks like you addressed some of the above already

I realize you had the system bled but did anyone do the true procedure on actuator which requires the removal of it and loosening of the screws and running a bleed cycle which cycles they the gears and then tighten up and reinstall?

Again if i had to guess .. loose screws, right bleed, accumulator given that you did the others

Btw ..do you have the old relay ..i know this is a long shot but maybe scuding relay is having issues as well .. a factory relay is cheap just as a test as well

I think we covered everything that can go wrong minus a leaking throw out bearing but that would show you fluid on ground

Just need to look at each item and the data to narrow down without throwing parts at it unless real cheap or considered a wear item like the accumulator

Let us know about the cycling and if codes come back

Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

 

I honestly couldn't say if a 'proper' bleed, but my guess would be no. I would assume the dealer would do that when they replaced the solenoid, but I should know better than to never make assumptions.

I do have the old relay, but I'm sure thats not it, the symptoms were already there when I put the Scuding relay in.. I'll clear the codes, and cycle it as you suggested and report back.

 

Ok, 4 shifts with car off before pump runs again (1st gear start-N-1st-N-1st). Not sure how long it should take with car is 1st and car off, but without shifting, I don’t hear the pump recycling at all, at least up to 7 minutes. But after a few minutes, pump cycles on 1st shift.

 

When looking at data look for circuit pressure , pump on time, system in time, cycle time and leak rates

Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

 

I suggest driving and changing gears while mapping hydraulic pressures and relay on/off

I think you can do this in the garage but do a self relearn while mapping pressure

I think this may showing one of those screws are loose



Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

 

Ok, I can work on this tomorrow. By “self relearn”, do you mean full ECU reset procedure?

Thanks again for your help!

 

You are welcome..

There is a relearn function that the f1 actuator goes thru each gear ..the function should be listed in your tool

This is different than the ecu / throttle body relearn you mentioned

Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

 

This is exactly what was diagnosed in my 430 a couple years back. The fix worked like a charm.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

 

Hey Anzir, thanks for the note. Were you experiencing similar symptoms, i.e. F1 problems after 15 minutes or so?

 

My issues started on a 100 mile rally. Once the car got hot it did the same thing. Turned it off, cooled down a bit and it went back to normal. Took it to Ferrari of Central Florida and they found it on the first try.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

 

Thanks Anzir!

Flash, I do see a self learning mode in my tool under Gearbox -> Actuator -> selflearning. Is this the test you are talking about? Also, not sure if it reports the data while you're doing the test, but if its the right one, I'll run it and see what happens..

 

That is the function

See if you can start the data capture and then start the process ..not sure if you can have both at same time ..if not, a drive changing gears will suffice

Remember that once you run the relearn you may get the error codes ..so that may be a good thing too




Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

 

Also... Btw.. your version is a little old ..the newest version i believe is at 10.95

Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

 

yes, I stole a screenshot from an older post, mine is running 10.85. I'll try to get on it today, thanks!

 

Well, that was interesting.. I go out to the car, clear the codes, and then set up the data stream. Get out of the driveway and as soon as I shift into 2nd, ediff errors on dash.. I pull in and out of driveway several times and drive around the neighborhood and every time I start it up, ediff error, which I had not seen before. So, then I ran the self learning, and tried again. Same deal, ediff error. So, then I pull back into garage to pull codes again (this is after self learning). No error codes! So, then I start it up again, and the ediff error is magically gone. So, I went for a drive in the surrounding neighborhoods, and was able to reproduce the problem several times.

Below are the graphs, note that I NEVER put the car in to neutral once on the drive, all the shifts to neutral you see are when slowing to a stop. The first time it happened, the car automatically shifted itself into 1st after 5 seconds or so. The rest of the times, I had to pull both paddles, then the right paddle to get it back into gear. When I did that, it would initially go to 2nd gear then immediately shift itself back into 1st. I hope I collected all the data you needed, I can do it again if I missed something. In summary, no codes now since the relearn, but the ediff error sure scared me a bit. Thanks for the look, if you want to the first neutral, that happened around the 500 sec mark..




Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Heres a cleaner version of the charts:


Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Nice work


So far after a relearn with no errors proves the potentiometer seem to be good

The ediff sometimes goes off when it is cold and make the nthe wheels sharp or if you jumped the ok on display before starting

I assuming battery is in good condition and fully charged .. if not that can cause the ediff as well


So getting back to charts .. i don't like that your pressure drops more than 5 bar per shift

Run one more relearn and tell me if you hear the pump, how many times it cycles , how many shifts before cycling while doing relearn

With car running just leave in neutral and graph pump on/off and hydraulic pressure

Repeat with car off key on

Also take for a ride and stay each gear 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 longer and graph pressure while staying in same gear

I assume that you downshifting when slowing down ?

Map hydraulic pressure with foot on brake and in first gear

Side note .. i know the new version of the ferrari software has a ediff section .. print out the three or so values if you can ..not sure if your version has it yet or if not can you get a free update from xdiag



Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

 

One other thing I didn't like (but it could be just the tool) .. i see the pressure going below 40 which I have to look up seems lower than when the pump should be triggered

When doing future mapping map the pump on / off signal ..



Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk