Some comments from the previous thread on this:
http://4c-forums.com/16-engine-technical/33450-transmission-poll-discussion.html

#7 for me although I have a new TCM waiting for me to be installed at Service next week.
We won't know if my TCM has been corrupted (from water or whatever else) until they take it out and analyze it.

#90 is an early LE without the shield. The internal wires and the connections to the plug are exposed for all to see.
I tried Docron's tie wrap test and found that the engine compartment was somewhat protected by an internal plastic(?) lining applied to the bodywork that serves a barrier to the entry of water.
(I am almost afraid to type this) We have experienced no transmission problems.

I think that a solution such as the fix applied by Docron would be more effective in protecting the plug from moisture than the shield.

9. NO problem
NO TCU shield
13k miles
received July 2015
built February 2015
SE coupe

 

More from previous thread (page 2)

#90 is an early LE without the shield. The internal wires and the connections to the plug are exposed for all to see.
I tried Docron's tie wrap test and found that the engine compartment was somewhat protected by an internal plastic(?) lining applied to the bodywork that serves a barrier to the entry of water.
(I am almost afraid to type this) We have experienced no transmission problems.

I think that a solution such as the fix applied by Docron would be more effective in protecting the plug from moisture than the shield.

Mine is an LE car. I am problem #5. Dealer has replaced tranny pump, accumulator and regulator, and software patch. Now looking at DNA selector switch and paddle shifters.

#6 - problem started as a fault that locked out manual mode and defaulted to natural. Then got worse to the point the car would fault and shift uncommanded into neutral whilst driving.

Problem occurred ~5,000km and the dealer eventually replaced the transmission and battery.
I don't have the TCM shield yet but have since shielded it with some plastic sheet and zip ties.

No shield.
Stock car.

Problem went from occasional to consistent given enough time. Eventually fixed.

I like the additional criteria to include.
Dynamic, Manual always.
Car lives out-of-doors.
Washed with water once a month.
Daily driver.
15,000 miles (maybe) when problems started.
18,000 miles when fixed.

Driving styles (for me):
Daily city.
Spirited twisties.
Tracked once or twice.

I always keep my foot on the brake pedal when stopped, or, I press the N button.
ALWAYS.

No shield, no problems. 50,000km

 

From Page 3 of prior discussion:

After having the hydraulic pump and smart drive module replaced (two separate service events), our car has faulted again. Same as before, codes p1cc0-00 and b1067-67. The dealer is resetting the codes but I will drive it 500 miles tomorrow for relocation. I will be using automatic mode and crossing my fingers.

I believe mine would be a #5.

It doesn't appear that I have this metal shelf. Not sure where it is. In front of the battery towards to drivers seat or next to the battery on the left? Either way there isn't a metal shelf. The tranny problem has happened 2 times in the last 2 times I've driven the vehicle. I'm currently waiting for the tow truck to bring it to the dealer. I will update all results etc. once I have more info.

 

Page 4 and 5 comments:

2016 4C Spider. November 2015 Build Date. Shield on TCU (Transmission Control Module). Failed at 900 miles. Only ran in 'Limp Mode' (Natural / Automatic). Happened several days after the one and only time I washed it. There have always been water spots on the shield, but a noticable amount of water made it into the engine compartment when I did wash it. Dealer, Orange Coast Fiat in Costa Mesa where I purchased it replaced the TCU after going back and forth with the Technicians / Engineering Team in Michigan. Took about a week to get the OK from the Alfa Team and almost another week for the part to be shipped. Car now has 1600 miles, no issues since. The dealer technician did review all of the issues with SportCoupe's and RacerZ's. I am friends with both and my technician was able to pull both files. This took place after RacerZ's "Software Patch" but before the latest issue with SportCoupe's.

Just for the records, i have the feedback of about 10 4c in Italy that are being regularly tracked (meaning at least once a month, more often twice a month), at least 3/4 of them quite pushed too, and about other 10 that running on road only. We had not transmission issues on the road ones, some (3/4) of the most tracked had some rare issue (rare meaning less than once a year of use) of gearbox switching to degraded mode, with self recovery after some minutes of pause. This has happened regardless of ambient temperature and more often on low temperature than high. I will try to pay more attention but I'm feeling that on most cases the weather conditions were damp/wet. O had it just once, on the last session at the Red Bull ring, wet. It was the last session of the day (so after a total of 3 hours), in the last minutes of a 45 min, no pause session. The car recovered alone after 2 minutes of cool down.

 

I think that I transferred all of the comments describing failures, fixes, etc.

Any information you would care to post to help describe what you were experiencing (including error codes and their meanings) would be helpful.

We do have a list of known codes in the "Technical Reference and DIY" sticky thread in the Engine and Technical section of the forum. I'll try to keep adding to this list as more are discovered/defined.

Build date, whether your car is a coupe or spider, LE or SE, might also be good information to post below.

Thanks for your contributions!

 

I voted number 6.

I have an early LE without shield.
About 15,000 miles when problems started. Several failed attempts, but eventually a fix.
Symptoms were sporadic, but eventually became consistent making diagnostic easier.
Took about 3000 miles of daily driving before a fix was possible.
That was about 4000 miles ago without incident since.

As mentioned in several other threads, my fix was a software patch. Quite a few members have PMed me asking how to get this patch. I've always responded favorably, but have never heard if they received my secret patch of not, or, if they ever had favorable results by any method.

 

My car is currently in the shop for this problem. I have 1113 miles in it and should have more info from the dealer tomorrow. When I spoke with the service advisor he said another car just left yesterday with the same problem. Should I wait to get my car back and test it for a week or so before answering the poll?

 

PistolPete, I'd suggest you give it a good long test drive before voting.
That's just based on some others' experiences here.
Hoping you can call it "fixed". Fingers crossed for you.

 

Definitely drive for a while to make sure. Our car has now been released as "fixed" twice but faulted after that.

 

Absolutely. My experience is that two separate 100 mile drives is not the same as one 200 mile drive. The real test is a nice long drive (with or without) on a twisty road with lots of shifting. Manual mode only. Automatic mode seems to be immune to the problems.

 

If the goal is to see if the shield has a practical function, then what the fix was and how well it worked is a topic for a different survey. We are trying to find out if owners with cars that have no shield should go get a shield or not. Seeing the rear quarter panel needs to come off to put a shield in, it would be nice to know if there is a benefit to the shield other than providing a mounting spot for an electric pencil sharpener.

 

My point is, not all transmission problems may have the same origin.
IF somebody with a shield got their issue fixed by replacing a push-button on the console, but most people's without a shield don't get fixed without a TCU & wiring harness replacement, that also tells us something.
I believe that the "fixed" options (along with any description people add) might prune some of the outliers from the data set.

Otherwise, we might be researching the equivalent of whether right-handed people have more left knee pain than southpaws, without even realizing it!

 

The problem with a rather complex survey is the delay in getting results in could lower reply rates as people forget about it (or get confused about which category they should go into).

 

What is the distinction between occasional and consistent? Does consistent require less than a particular number of miles or shifts before the problem arises?

 

Good question.

My thought is that "occasional" would suggest that you've had a transmission error or two, but not with any regular frequency. "Hmmm, I wonder what just happened. I must mention that to the dealer on my next service".
"Consistent" means that it happens regularly enough that you are worried about it. Probably (but not necessarily) reproducible for the mechanic on a test drive. You probably have or shortly will involve the service department. It is affecting your trust/enjoyment of the car.

Certainly, "occasional" might be a precursor to "consistent" problems.

I based this on reading earlier reports/threads where some people have chimed in that they "had that happen once", while others have obviously experienced far more severe issues.
It was an attempt to dig deeper into the extent of the problem. Maybe foolishly.

 

2016 Spider. My car failed at 900 miles. November 2015 build date. Had and still has the shield. so.... I chose "Constant, have TCU shield, successful fix". It was NOT fixed by ADDING the shield. It already had the shield and it was "repaired" by replacing the Transmission Control Unit/Module.

 

Although we are shy of having statistically significant numbers, the shield doesn't appear to be worth putting in if the goal is to prevent or delay the TCM problem. The frequency of the problem is rather high 5/28, if the occasional problems required a trip to the dealership because they put the car in normal auto mode.

 

Just to bring this up in the active posts so people don't forget to vote so we can measure the real extent of the gear box problem issue.

I find it hard to believe 16% of the cars (5/31) have had the issue seeing the poor response (that would be a bit of an epidemic). So the vast majority are probably uncounted no problem cars whose owners haven't bothered to vote or to look into their car's engine compartment). It would be nice to know the real number.

 

If we get enough entries (a few hundred would be good), the +shield and -shield groups should have a roughly equal distribution of car with an easy life.

We have 2700 members, of which a couple hundred attend the site once a week or more.
The thread has been viewed over 800 times, but I have no idea how many are repeat visits, web crawlers, or guests visiting the page perhaps researching a purchase.
Of course, guests cannot vote.
My guess would be that very few members who have a problem and have seen the thread, will not have voted.
Many who do not have the issue won't have even opened the topic, or if they did, perhaps not cared enough to vote.
In that respect, we will likely never have a representation of the relative magnitude of the issue.
We cannot even say if the problems experienced are all the same origin. In fact, they are almost certainly not, based on what a few of the fixes have been.

The results might be somewhat informative, but are pretty far from scientific. Sadly, I don't see that changing over time.
What it may still show us in the long run is whether or not the "with shield" group experiences a similar rate of failure to those without the shield.
And I guess that's what you really wanted to see in the first place.

 

Have about 4k in miles, i have had not had any issues and have the shield. (#10). But I park in a garage, and normally do not drive the car if it rains, but have been caught at work a few times during torrential rains.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, mine also have an easy life. If we get enough entries (a few hundred would be good), the +shield and -shield groups should have a roughly equal distribution of car with an easy life.

 

I haven't voted yet but I had the problem and had the fix. That said, I've only put about 220 miles on it since the fix was completed so I think I need to wait longer before voting.

 

I'm one of those repeat visitors. Everytime a new post is made, I view it. Usually there's been three or four posts made by then, but sometimes it's only one.

I view the threads that have been updated since my last visit to the forum. I remember enough of the overall conversations that I only need to read the 'new' posts. But as 4Canada said, sometimes specific details need to be reread for certain reasons.

 

I haven't posted yet because "Constant with LE w/o Shield - Got Refund - Bought Spider w/ Shield- So Far So Good - Knock on Wood" isn't an option.

 

You should pick a close approximate like, constant no shield and no fix (passing the problem on isn't really a fix). I can't say I blame you, I would've done the same.

You should get a second vote for the spider, no problem, with shield.

 

Someone with an endoscope camera should look under the factory installed shield to see if there is any evidence of wiring attached under. Having never done any otf this before, maybe this is a crazy suggestion. If not, you can get an endoscope that fits an android phone for ~$20. If there are wires under the shield, it could suggest it's being used as a ground in that car (as well as other +shield cars). If that is the case, buying the shield to put it on a -shield car wouldn't make sense.

I wonder if Doc figured out where his TCM is grounded. Naturally, I'm assuming the Alfa Romeo used the few metal parts in the 4c to ground the electrical system....I don't know if that's the case. I'm not a mechanic or a do it yourself guy like Doc, I "call the guy" when something goes wrong....that's what people do when they're allergic to manual labor.

 

I bet Doc has an end-scope-thingy. Oops, Doc doesn't have a shield.

These types of units don't rely on a ground connection to or through the case. They get their ground through the wire connection and the wiring harness. The only reason the case needs to be grounded is so it can offer an electronic interference shield.

We still don't know what ARs intention is with 'the shield'.
Is it there to flow water away?
Is it there to act as an electronic shield? If so, it won't function if it's not thoroughly grounded.
Or is there another use that we haven't thought of?

If 'the shield' was really that important, AR would have it listed as a TSB and we'd all have our cars in for service. But it's being treated as an afterthought of no importance. Then again, if it's of no importance, why is AR including it on the later cars? Has anybody found Mario's pencil yet?

 

I'm sure that IF they're using the shield for grounding part of the electrical system in the later cars, the earlier cars use another metal bit in the bay somewhere. I think "hand made in Italy" comes with a bit of variation from car to car. Making things uniform in all cars with a TSB may not be required if it doesn't make the earlier cars dangerous or unacceptably unreliable for AR.

 

TSBs aren't like a government mandated recall so I don't think they are done to all cars....only those that have a complaint. Am I correct in thinking this or are TSBs mandatory "fixes" on all cars as they are brought in for periodic service. If the TSBs become known it would be a good idea to file the appropriate "complaint" to ensure that the TSBs are done for all known areas.

 

Observation about modern TSBs for software updates - as cars age and the manufacturer turns its back on the older models there's going to be an aftermarket for updates like these.

 

That would be the purpose of this poll. To get data so owners that haven't had an issue yet, can take the data to their local AR dealer and request a fix. So far, it seems the shield is irrelevant....whatever its function may be. The rate of TCM issues seems high but since we only have 39 responses, this isn't high enough to go to the dealership, and we don't know what to ask for to prevent the problem.

 

39 responses.
6 reported problems.
1.5% failure rate.

That seems like a high percentage, but it's a very low response. Can we assume that everyone (who is a forum member) with an issue has responded? Can we assume that the several thousand who didn't respond have never experienced a transmission issue?

If it's 6 out of 2,000, that's not so bad. Would be nice if it was 0 of 1,000,000 but...

Companies like Toyota and Porsche, who sell hundreds of thousands every year. What are their actual failure rates? We know that every single vehicle manufacturer does have recalls and TSBs.

 

39 responses.
6 reported problems.
1.5% failure rate.

That seems like a high percentage, but it's a very low response. Can we assume that everyone (who is a forum member) with an issue has responded? Can we assume that the several thousand who didn't respond have never experienced a transmission issue?

If it's 6 out of 2,000, that's not so bad. Would be nice if it was 0 of 1,000,000 but...

Companies like Toyota and Porsche, who sell hundreds of thousands every year. What are their actual failure rates? We know that every single vehicle manufacturer does have recalls and TSBs.

Yer decimal place is misplaced.
But the survey is not statistically valid.