Replacement transmission shift module Clio RS

[GtirHil]

Hi. I apologise if I am treading over heavily walked ground but I searched and did not find the topic.

The original part number for the shift module (TCM?) on the Clio RS is apparently 310321517R. Getting Renault to replace one of these is very expensive.

I see new modules with numbers like A2C30743000 available from China with less than mythical prices.

And apparently you can use a PCM Tool Flash 67 to transfer the RS code to it from your old box.

Does anybody have experience with this?

Thanks!

 

[youngarthur]

Hi. I apologise if I am treading over heavily walked ground but I searched and did not find the topic.

The original part number for the shift module (TCM?) on the Clio RS is apparently 310321517R. Getting Renault to replace one of these is very expensive.

I see new modules with numbers like A2C30743000 available from China with less than mythical prices.

And apparently you can use a PCM Tool Flash 67 to transfer the RS code to it from your old box.

Does anybody have experience with this?

Thanks!

If you get no reply, look on the Facebook forums, they are quite active.

 

[GtirHil]

Thanks. I'm not a fan of Facebook but in times of need ...

 

[MarcB]

Not cheap these

 

[GtirHil]

Is that the official price fro Renault? I saw $3,000 in Australian dollars. And that was a few months ago ...

 

[MarcB]

Is that the official price fro Renault? I saw $3,000 in Australian dollars. And that was a few months ago ...

This is the RRP from a Renault dealership in the UK but some dealerships might be slightly more expensive or slightly cheaper.

 

[udho77]

Hey, do you have updates on your search? Is it true that you need to flash from your old box if you buy new one?

I really hope all you need to do to start the relearning module in CLIP, Renault do make it harder for us to fix ourself..

 

[GtirHil]

I bought a TCM reconditioned from China. Nobody here could reprogram it. So I took it to the dealer here and they charged me three hours labour to put it in. I got a call saying that it was a unit from a 1.2 Captur and was not compatible with an RS200 and could not be used. The Chinese dealer thought that it SHOULD be reprogrammable for an RS.

Does anybody know if this is true? Is the physical unit the same between the two cars? I was happy enough with the dealer service, but I wonder if they were being lazy about reprogramming it rather than just setting clutch points etc.

 

[GtirHil]

Attached is my new TCM opened up, as I can't use it anyway. Renault claims that it is a board for a 1.2, not an RS. On the right is the motor unit. Outlined in yellow is what I take to be the computing board with a chunky CPU in the middle. Below it is what I take to be the power control board. The pins to the motors come through the outlined computing board from the power board below, and pin into the connectors by the motors.

If i were designing it, I might separate the power and computing boards, as here? In mass specs they are optically separated.

I think that the power and motor boards for the 1.2 and the RS might be the same. Possibly the computing board is too, just programmed differently.

My terrible plan is to open my RS TCM and see if cleaning might help, and look for blown components. A friend of mine with a Citroen cleaned out his TCM and it worked much better after that.

Failing that, I shall try to transfer the computing board from the RS to this unit (very carefully) put it all back together and see what happens. It depends if everything specialised is on the computing board, and that I don't damage it. And where the very intermittent fault is.

Any thoughts?

Wish me luck. I'll post the outcomes.

 

[Matt Cup]

Whatever you do, document it on here. Will be quite interesting to see if you figure anything out 👍

 

[KondorRED]

Hey GtirHil,
Just in case you need a new TCM, I have two from Clio RS, so don't hesitate to reach out. I know these are pretty scarce.
In any case good luck with your car!

 

[ClioRS200T]

Hi I'm having P1863 stored and reoccurring 'Transmission Transfer Case Contact Plate Power Open Circuit' or so the scan tool says, along with P0226 'Throttle position (TP) sensor C/accelerator pedal position (APP) sensor C- range/performance problem'

Car drives fine and only reason for scanning was to investigate the 'Check antipollution system' on the display with a check engine light

But it seems I may also have TCM failure .?

 

[GtirHil]

Sorry that I've been quiet. I went to Cape Town to visit my brother and got a second bout of COVID.

Thanks for the offer of a TCU, KondorRed, we'll see how it goes.

Back to the story...

I took out the original TCU which was throwing occasional Check Auto Gearbox errors. I split it open. NOT an easy job and I got a good deal more energetic with levers than I intended. Fortunately, while the software may be soft it doesn't seem to be brittle...

I couldn't see anything damaged inside. I concentrated on the MOSFETs (none of which looked cooked) and the large capacitor. I was interested to see that the Chinese reconditioned unit still had the original capacitor as there was original adhesive on it as well as new. The back of that unit has (I think) a coil on it and therefore I assume that the whole thing smooths power surges, but I am not an electrician. The new capacitor was soldered in whilst the original just had grip fittings. The old capacitor still held a good charge: take heed!

I couldn't think of a way to test the steppers. There is a very high resistance across the terminals, so there must be a driver or something in there.

The computing board, if it is, was extremely reluctant to separate from the back board, so I left it in there. But what IS replaced in the Chinese reconditioned units? I see no evidence that those boards have been repaired and I'm sure that replacement cost would be prohibitive. So at the moment it seems that neither the boards nor the capacitor are replaced. Are the stepper drivers replaced? I don't know.

So putting all these thoughts together I soldered the new capacitor onto the back board fitting and put it together with the new steppers.

To my surprise the car started and runs fine without errors. I made a 5 km loop with the gearbox working perfectly. We'll have to see in the longer term.

When it fails again I will try swapping the two clutch servos. I have spares of those. I would have thought that a failed clutch operation COULD cause any of the errors that I have seen.

Sorry that there wasn't a more concrete result.