458 Intermittent loss of reverse gear

2012 458 Spider
26,000km (16,000 miles)

Took it for a drive today and after getting back home from what was otherwise a lovely morning found the transmission unwilling to enter reverse gear. No other warnings before I found this issue and the car isn't throwing any lights at me other than a gearbox failure light (but only if I try to hold down the R selector button).

I went back out onto the road and just drove around slowly for another 30 or so minute, pulled over every 10 minutes or so just to see if I can get reverse engaged and it was a hit/miss affair, sometimes it would engage sometimes it wouldn't. If I engage reverse, move like 3 feet, engage first, then try and engage R again it fails and I need to sit around in neutral or dive again some more...


Finally got the car back to my parking space but was wondering if anyone had similar issues before and how they managed to solve it.

 

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Thanks mate !!

Sucks to have this happen 2 months into ownership for me .... but it is what it is, will fwd this to my independent mechanic and let him know

 

Yeah, I'd be really concerned if it was losing fwd gears. But if it's just reverse i guess it's something else ?

How did you get your issue resolved ?

 

No code on my obd2 scanner using the torque pro app

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Just went out for petrol. car shifted immediately into reverse after starting it up. After driving for maybe 3km I pulled over onto the side of the road to try and select R ... no luck

Getting to the petrol station, shutting off the car, filling up ... starting er back up again and it immediately went into R again ... at every single red light/cross walk it didnt select reverse (see above video)

Finally when I got back to my parking space it again failed to engage reverse immediately. Holding down the R button though allowed the car to select reverse after about 4-5 seconds or so (didn't film).

I have a feeling there's nothing wrong with the actuators/solenoids/hydraulics but it's merely some sensor in the car that's faulty and my hypothesis is that this faulty sensor is telling the car it's not safe to change from a forward gear into reverse. Maybe it's a brake pedal position sensor, wheel speed sensor, shaft speed sensor in the gearbox, etc. I dunno

On the bright side, it doesn't "sound" like it is a problem that requires me to get a new gearbox .... on the downside .... this seems like a gremlin that's gonna be hard to nail down ...

 

fwiw the video above shows the gearbox failure light isn't permanently illuminated, it only turns on when I try to grab reverse and the car can't engage the reverse gear...


i'm guessing this is what you would experience in a working car if you try and hit the "R" selector while moving forwards (unforunately i have no way to check this given my car's clearly not in "working" order)

 

Woulnt this affect both gears that solenoid is responsible for?

 

I dunno, I've never tried to engage reverse while moving forward... Well not since I was 16 and a student driver..

 

Thanks for this mate

I'll get this to my specialist or dealer and try to pull the codes from the computer

 

I just took the car to my independent this morning

Car started up and engaged reverse just fine but as soon as I left the parking lot it wouldn't engage reverse anymore.

On the way to my mechanic the gearbox failure light started flashing intermittently, cycling every few seconds between flashing, solid on, and solid off while in forward motion AND while stationary.

 

Turns out it was the reverse button !!

got new switches and all good now (fingers crossed it stays that way) !!!