Mmt Issues Not Covered By Extended Warrenty. Help!

[James85]

The crux: Inchcape Battersea are telling me that I could be facing a total bill of £2,700 to fix a faulty MMT gearbox on an 08 Aygo (at 28k miles) despite having a Club Toyota Warrenty... Outraged does not even come close

The car (used) and warrenty were both purchased through Inchcape Oxford, and the car has been serviced and maintained at great expense at Inchcape Battersea since.

So, the problem started a few weeks ago, where abrupt clutch release lead to complete clutch actuator failure within 10 metres. The car refused to go in to first, and just grinded gears if you tried reverse so had to be recovered 100miles to our local Toyota garage late on a Sunday evening. Not fun.

Following a gearbox reset for £170 (not covered by the extended warrenty) the garage performed a service and MOT, changing the front disks and pads (at 28k!) for a total cost of £670. ouch.

Despite an OK drive home, the next day the abrupt clutch returned, seeing the car kangaroo away from standstill, 'banging' through gears, and impossible to move in slow traffic - time to return to the garage.

Well, despite it clear that it is the actuator that is at fault, I have been told that I must pay £1000 for a replacement clutch (it needs to be in perfect condition, and is worn) before they will even look at the actuator, which they have told me may cost me (personally) another £1500 to fix if broken. This is all despite a full Club Toyota warrenty.

So, at worst, I could be looking at a total £2700 bill for a faulty gearbox....

For a small city car, that is supposed to be cheap to run, this is absolutely outrageous. The MMT gearbox is completely not fit for purpose, and the extended warrenty appears to be lacking in its ability to cover the most expensive item in the car.

Any advice on how to minimise my losses gratefully received!

James

[FROSTYBALLS]

Try writing to Toyota or the warranty management company directly. Be polite but factual, ask them to consider the issues and come back to you.

[James85]

Thanks. I will certainly be escalating this as this certainly feels like an unacceptable position to be in for a fully warrentied 28k mile car.

I have found an independent Toyota specialist quoting £680 for an MMT clutch change, who I will ask to inspect the current clutch condition. Any suggestions of reputable Toyota specialists in South or West London would be very much appreciated

[Uncle Bob]

Thanks. I will certainly be escalating this as this certainly feels like an unacceptable position to be in for a fully warrentied 28k mile car.

I have found an independent Toyota specialist quoting £680 for an MMT clutch change, who I will ask to inspect the current clutch condition. Any suggestions of reputable Toyota specialists in South or West London would be very much appreciated

This company maybe able to quote you on a clutch......

http://www.tech-one.co.uk

[Devon Aygo]

These sort of cases are always difficult to comment on, if the clutch has been worn out ( which is possible through holding the car on hills with the throttle etc ) then this is wear and tear and not covered by your extended warranty, the worn out clutch can cause all of the poor shift issues you have mentioned. However if there is a fault code stored for the MMT clutch shift actuator then this could subject to inspection be a cause of the worn clutch and there fore the actuator should be covered by the warranty and the clutch included as consequential damage.

Has there been a fault code stored in the MMT control ECU?

NOTE: Having your car worked on or repaired by a non Toyota garage will most definitely invalidate your extended warranty policy, if you are disputing the dealers findings, contact the warranty company and ask them to appoint an independent engineer, you will have to agree to strip down labour costs, the engineer will then inspect the car and report back to the warranty company, his decision can overrule both the dealer and warranty company.

[James85]

Thanks. Very useful advice.

The initial breakdown where the clutch didn't seem to be actuating at all (grinding gears into reverse, couldn't shift into first) led both the garage and me to assume actuator/ecu fault rather than worn clutch - it has certainly never slipped under power. The car was remobilised through a gearbox reset with no mention of error codes

[rajivrattna]

Here is my recent experience with this gear box. The MMT is a odd gear set up. Today, I had my second time glitch with the MMT when the car while driving suddenly went in to a slow limp mode, It flashed a red gear wheel symbol but continued to move forward (probably constantly on the 1st gear) . I pulled off to the side of the road and shut off the engine and started it again and every thing went back to normal again! The last time it hjappened to me, it was excatly a year ago. Seems like the actuator plays up some times in these cars! The funny thing is that it does not show which gear it is in but continues to move forward and pressing the accelerator only revs up the engine without increasing your speed. So just stop panicking, pull up on the side of the road, shut off and start again.

Except for these two incidence it has performed without any problem.

[Wiz201]

I had problems with my previous Yaris - amber engine management light on, and the MMT wasn't performing 100%, it didn't like to glide forward smoothly in first gear, sometimes I'll be rocked backwards and forwards, so when it was on the level or downhill I made it stay in second gear from starting up until we got a bit faster. In E mode, it was hesitant on rolling forward even when pressing accelerator.

I had toyota look at it in view to doing a goodwill contribution as this was not a wear and tear problem. In the end they just charged us lower end of labour costs £330 when they eventually found the problem.

with the car being out of warranty and it wasn't getting younger at 5 years old, I ended up replacing it for a brand new Aygo MMT. The gearbox in the Aygo seems to have a better pull as its much smoother, this car will also stay in the highest gear possible; i.e. doesn't go down into first unless its absolutely necessary, and seems to have a better sense on whether its going up and down hill.

[rajivrattna]

The newer Aygo (2015 model) has a better tweeked MMT gear box compared to our MMT, they say. These gear box seem to be getting better and even more popular in some other countries like India. The Italian company that supplies these gear box has a big presence in India starting this year. Suzuki India's latest model car "Maruti Celerio" with MMT /AMT gear box is out selling its manual gear box model. They say that they have a newer MMT box in these cars. We will soon find out how successful Magneto Marelli's MMT gear box are in that country. The volume sold is huge and that means problems will appear in large numbers too, which also means MM has a huge potential to improve and fine tune the product. Time will tell. Sorry, this got little off topic.

[FROSTYBALLS]

The MMT is made by Aisin Seiki, a Japanese manufacturer of manual, automatic and automated manual transmissions - not an Italian company. Aisin make gearboxes for around 55 car manufacturers globally, and the multi mode transmission used in the Suzuki/Maruti Celerio is also an Aisin unit.

[rajivrattna]

The MMT is made by Aisin Seiki, a Japanese manufacturer of manual, automatic and automated manual transmissions - not an Italian company. Aisin make gearboxes for around 55 car manufacturers globally, and the multi mode transmission used in the Suzuki/Maruti Celerio is also an Aisin unit.

Aygo may have the Aisin MMT but Celerio definitely has the Magneto Marelli AMT and here is a picture to prove that. Look at the fourth picture here. There seems to be more than one manufacturer for these automated clutch drive units. The other one is a company called "ZF" and Tata cars in India are said to be in contact with the ZF for their AMT. If these manufacturers manage to fine tune it to deliver according to our expectations than we may see more of this in smaller cars.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/149464-maruti-suzuki-celerio-first-drive.html

[FROSTYBALLS]

Toyota are one of two major shareholders in Aisin, and, as one of Toyota's major suppliers, Aisan share design and development with Toyota. So the Aygo will have the Aisan transmission

[Cyker]

What we need is an Aygo HSD, then we can just tell everyone to avoid the MMT and get the HSD if they want a decent reliable autobox !