New to me S4, tamper tags on gearbox?

Hi All!
So after a couple of years off A.S, Suffering driving my Caddy everyday (actually a great van for everyday! but still a van!) i couldn't do it anymore. About a month ago bought another b8 s4, as loved the last one so much, didn't want a manual though so found an stronic, fully aware of the potential issues on the early ones, i went ahead and bought one on 104k with no service history obviously because i love playing it safe! But it was an avant, black, rs6 looking wheels, stronic - exactly what i wanted exterior wise.

Anyway got it for a good price so didn't really matter, and it seems to have paid off, i knew none of the specs so when i turned up to look at the car it was totally blind, all checked out and turned out to have the higher level mmi, it had sports diff and active suspension, super sport seats, so bargain, it goes lovely and gearbox seems absolutely spot on. Its currently halfway to stage 2(ish) after looking round properly and checking ecu it turned out to be totally stock, so stuck a stage 1 on straight away to get me by, intake and a few exhaust mods done last week and waiting for a pulley to arrive and then i'll be re-tuning for stage 2!

Due to no service records, the first weekend i got it decided to do all services, so engine oil done fine, and dropped stronic pan did a full flush, new internal filter and fluid, lovely. After doing it i noticed a sticker on the window for a main dealer who serviced it at around 40k, and called them up got through very luckily to the same person that sold the car 10yrs ago! It has quite a distinctive VRM for an sf##our so she knew it straight away. She looked up the history and turns out it does have FASH! Along with quite a few recall and in warranty repairs, so sounds like its been reasonably well looked after.

So onto my actual question which is a bit of an obscure one, not sure if anyone will be able to help. When doing the gearbox fluids, noticed 3 anti-tamper (thats the best way i can describe them) tags on the box, 1 was through a bolt on the bell housing or mounting to the engine, and the other 2 were on each side of the mechatronic pan, through a tiny drilled hole joining the pan to the housing.
Has anyone seen this before? is it something audi would do after a repair or replacement, or possibly a 3rd party gearbox repair place?
I know it doesn't really make a difference either way as it is working fine now, and i know problems could still happen but i'm just trying to get an idea whether it has had anything done in the past just to build up my knowledge of the history. they look like the below, but with grey plastic circles/clamps instead of lead. stupidly i didn't take photos of the actual ones!

Thanks!

EDIT- i should also add that on scanning the transmission it an 8K1 number returned (8K1 927 156 J / 0B5 30tfsiRdW H03 0013) but from looking at the box the housing definitely looks early as it doesn't have the cartridge style filter on the side. I'm thinking maybe just mech repaired or replaced?

Thanks for the reply, that's exactly what I was hoping to hear.

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Update - just phoned milta the car had a fully refurbed box fitted in September last year. Result. But I just changed the 6 month old fluid for no reason

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RyanJonS4 said:

Hell of a gamble that, but by the sounds of it you’ve had right result!

What tuning option have you gone for?

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Yeh very lucky, I do tuning myself, so I've just got a good contact working with me on it. Stage 1 was a nice difference, now just playing about with adding crackles into overrun because I'm a child. And then I know someone else who's got a good tested tune for the pulley ratio I'm going to try, I was tempted to leave it at stg1 but now I've got more confidence in the trans I reckon it will be fine. Then at some point probably tune stronic as well.

Dippy said:

I am no expert but I'd say that confirms that the whole gearbox was replaced. The code corresponds to a 2011+ version, and the missing filter indicates that it is the revised gearbox. It was only the 1st version in 2009/10 cars which had two oil filters.

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Hi dippy, I spent hours reading on here when I finally got logged back in yesterday and I'd say people think your an expert

Thanks for the comment, I have confirmed it has been replaced by milta sept 2018 so I got lucky, I hope, just annoyed I wasted time changing fluid.

Dippy said:

I'm just so obsessive that I read and research a lot. But regurgitating the knowledge I have gained just makes me a nerd, not an expert!


Have a search for Audi SSP 990193 on the interweb. From page 21 it details the first version of the 0B5 and specifically on p29 it covers the oil filters. Right from the start Audi planned to delete the in-line filter. The note states that it will be "integrated into the connection module" but I have looked at the drawings and compared them and that module does not look like it changed. But since officially neither filter is serviceable in the first version, but the cartridge one is serviceable in the second and third version, my guess is that they simply deleted the in-line one and then rely on regular replacement of the remaining one to maintain filtering performance.

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Haha! I know this one doesn't have cartridge but I didn't check for the inline filter, I understood from looking at what fluid and parts to get that they all had inline not replaceable up until the gen2 when the cartridge design was used on all.

The magnetic strips on the pan seem to do the most filtering to be honest from what I saw when doing the service, there was more on them than there was in the strainer style filter which looked brand new, although I imagine this is changed when they refurb the box.

Dippy said:

out of interest, what do you specifically do to achieve that?

BTW I assume you are aware of the potential weakness of the OE crank pulley?

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In general, ****** timing slightly on no load mainly. And most of the time add a couple of seconds before fuel cut off. On this it's an experiment at the moment for me and file writer, there's not many quick solutions out there, but ie and some other tuners are starting to release it slowly, the principle is pretty simple though and there's minimal risk of damage to anything. Personally I wouldn't get into offering it as a solution for people, as so many of these cars are already tuned and it becomes a minefield when people want to keep there current tune and just have features like that added.

Yes, 2 piece design with dampening isn't it, I think the original has already been replaced on this it looks newer and there is still some remains of old belt dotted around the front of the engine bay!

And I've ordered the CTS crank pulley instead of supercharger pulley to sort this when I decide to go stage 2. It costs about the same if you buy the install kit as well with the sc pulley, and kills 2 birds, so 100% the best way to go.