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.

 

[ClioRS200T]

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.

 

[ClioRS200T]

Ive managed to get the computing board off, you havnt tested all the mosfets, plenty more under there ..

 

[GtirHil]

As above, I decided not to risk my computing board and left the two boards together. I rebuilt with the new capacitor and steppers but all the old computing bits. So far, a week later, the car is running perfectly even though it's pretty hot at the moment. I'll update later if/when I get another Check Auto Gearbox. If not, then the problem was in the steppers. I've not retuned the gearbox at all, but it seems that the settings retained on the board work fine.

When I looked on line the opinion seemed to be that MOSFETs are very robust and don't deteriorate much over time.

I'll give it a bit longer and then I have some lower mileage clutch servos that I will swap in and see what happens.

 

[GtirHil]

It will be interesting to see how the different approaches go, ClioRS200T.

 

[Adey.]

well done for going into this to try and sort the issue. be very interested to see if its fixed long term.

 

[ClioRS200T]

If anyone is interested I've found a seller that can supply a programmed TCU for 410 USD shipped, I'll be going with this option if I have no joy

 

[GtirHil]

Mine was supposed to be programmed! It was: for a 1.2 Renault Captur! They only told me that it wasn't an RS after it was shipped. They assumed that the dealer would reprogram it with no issue.

But I hope that it works for you, we need to keep the costs down. In fact if mine kicks the bucket, may get back to you.

As an aside, my wife drove the RS for the first time in a while. And she had forgotten what a great little car it is.

 

[ClioRS200T]

You may have inadvertently solved your TCU issue, all mosfets tested okay and nothing else looks to have an obvious issue BUT the capacitor and it's out of spec....I would assume so was yours, both motors and coil were perfect. New capacitor on the way, maybe this is all that goes wrong with them... I would really like to get hold of a completely failed unit to test and trail things on..

 

[ClioRS200T]

The capacitance should be 2200uF. The measured capacity was over 2500, which is high although in spec. High reading may indicate ESR issues, so I measured ESR and it is very high (80-100 times higher than expected)

If you could test your old one that would be great info

 

[GtirHil]

I'm not quite sure how to test it: I ain't an electrician but I'll take it to work and have a go. But as I said, the capacitor had not been changed in the reconditioned unit, which was warranted for a year. Doesn't capacitance usually go down? As an archaeologist/geologist I have to ask what Electron Spin Resonance has to do with it?

 

[GtirHil]

And how did you test the motors? I was stumped by that one.

 

[ClioRS200T]

I'm not quite sure how to test it: I ain't an electrician but I'll take it to work and have a go. But as I said, the capacitor had not been changed in the reconditioned unit, which was warranted for a year. Doesn't capacitance usually go down? As an archaeologist/geologist I have to ask what Electron Spin Resonance has to do with it?

I would guess the reconditioned unit had a new capacitor installed in it, maybe that's all they do component wise to call it reconditioned if that's the failure point on them

Resistance rises as the capacitor begins to fail

 

[GtirHil]

I would guess the reconditioned unit had a new capacitor installed in it, maybe that's all they do component wise to call it reconditioned if that's the failure point on them

Resistance rises as the capacitor begins to fail

I'm not sure. Capacitance generally falls. I thought that yours seems fine to me. It's very close to spec. And its main function is probably to provide juice to give the steppers a kick, so a slight excess in storage doesn't seem to me like a problem? And, as I said, the capacitor in my reconditioned unit looks re-used. I'm not sure about resistance. Actually I'm not sure about ANY of it! ;-) But a new 1000 uF capacitor off our shelf has a resistance of 4 megaOhms. The slightly damaged one in my original TCU has a resistance of 22 megaOhms.

As for testing the steppers, the gearbox works the vast majority of the time, so I might have to test the steppers a LOT to get a failure. A job for an arduino? But the failure may not be reported by the stepper electronics. It's probably reported by sensors in the gearbox, because the steppers don't seem to care what position they start in.

Either way, capacitors or steppers, in my unit at the moment the problem does NOT look to lie in the boards. Which is what I was first thinking of.

 

[GtirHil]

But despite my doubts, it's not exactly clear to me what can go wrong with the steppers. When my TCU next fails, I shall try just changing the capacitor and shoving it back in.

 

[GtirHil]

My apologies, I know that this is going round and round. I've attached two photos. They were taken when I first opened my Chinese rebuilt TCU. The first is the capacitor and the second is the socket that it sat in, in the motor-side of the case. It is clear that they have cut the capacitor out of the gum used to glue it in. You can see the cuts on the capacitor and the socket side. I can see why they cut it: I damaged my original trying to lever it out. So the capacitor is definitely re-used and probably from the same TCU.

That means that my current TCU is running with the original boards, a re-used capacitor and probably reconditioned steppers. I assume a stepper driver problem caused it to fail. I suggest the existence of a driver because if there were simply connections to the coils, there would not be close to infinite resistance between the three connectors for the steppers.

I will post when my TCU fails, so if there is no reply, it is still going!

 

[ClioRS200T]

Okay I see. I got my together with new capacitor today and drove fine and the error code I would always get instantly is gone

So appears we've found the fault with these units, fixed for £12 lol

 

[Richard G]

Hey all
new on here and very interested in this thread having just purchased a 2015 rs200.
I wasn't really aware of these transmission issues and don't actually have any currently - just planning ahead I guess.
I'm just interested in this sort of thing, anyway.

A question I had re that capacitor - is it stuck to the case half and therefore has to be pulled out of its connectors to split the case?
Also if the capacitor is the issue - wouldn't both clutches be affected? since there appears to be only one capacitor.

cheers

 

[ClioRS200T]

The capacitor is glued to the motor half of the casing but the holder is on the bottom board, when reinstalling we put glue on the capacitor installed in the holder then put the motor half of the case on, the holder just has pinch style 'teeth' that hold on to the wires of the capacitor

From what I can tell it seems like a very common issues, more so the prefacelift cars I think?

 

[GtirHil]

There are 4 steppers driven from the TCU. Two (in the TCU) make the gear changes. But the wires to the two clutch actuators (I think) also come from that box.

 

[GtirHil]

As I am not planning on using my old TCU, I bashed one of the steppers out. Really there doesn't seem to be much to go wrong with them, so I have to put my vote with ClioRS200T that the capacitor is the key.

Though I've seen at least one failure from an exploded MOSFET.

So we can pay 1000 Australian dollars to China or >$3000 to the dealer to effectively replace a cheap capacitor.

Though there are lots of reports of replacing batteries or even changing the gearbox oil to extend the life of the TCU, presumably because the system had become voltage-borderline. And as the TCU controls the clutch actuators too, it could cause both "Check auto gearbox" and "Check anti-pollution" as rumour has it that the latter is actually reporting a clutch error.

 

[ClioRS200T]

Yes I was getting a 'check anti pollution'. Before anyone goes down this road I would recommend a new battery and possibly even the negative smart charge connection on the battery, after that if you can get the module off yourself and split it try a new capacitor for what it's worth and inspect the board.. basically just your time as cost and could potentially save you thousands

If that fails I would message
'Guangzhou Huadu Worldwide
Automatic Transmission Co., Ltd' on one of there Clio TCU listing (parts number matching a2c30743000) about getting the module programmed for the 1.6T before purchasing, they are also negotiable on price.. I managed to get them to $375 USD shipped..

You can do a clutch relearn procedure though the methods shown here if you do go with the new module, I'm not sure its 100% necessary, maybe worth trying without it first ? May relearn itself being a new module/programming?

 

[Aadil_Kho]

Okay I see. I got my together with new capacitor today and drove fine and the error code I would always get instantly is gone

So appears we've found the fault with these units, fixed for £12 lol

Thank you everyone for this tread. This is valuable information!
Can you please give the specs of the capacitor? Prepping for any "unforeseen" issues.

 

[GtirHil]

ClioRS200T said 2200 uF. I'm not sure if they come in different sizes! There are certainly different formats but you can see that from the photos.