Peugeot 107 Automatic Gearbox Problems

Featured image: © M 93 / Wikimedia Commons

One of the most popular city cars on the road because of its durability, efficiency and clever design, the Peugeot 107 has sold in huge numbers since its’ launch in 2005. The Peugeot 107 is effectively exactly the same car as both the Citroen C1 and Toyota Aygo (pre-2014), sharing much of the mechanical underpinnings.

While known for its reliability, the Peugeot 107 shipped with a 5-speed automated manual gearbox. This gearbox is a dependable unit, but like many automatic gearboxes, it suffers from its fair share of problems. In this article we’re going to look at some of the most common Peugeot 107 automatic gearbox problems and faults reported by owners all over the internet. This is not an exhaustive list of potential problems – just some of the most common issues with the Peugeot 107’s automatic gearbox and what you can do to resolve them.

Citroen/Toyota/Peugeot 2-Tronic Semi-Auto

It’s worth mentioning that the same semi-automatic gearbox was fitted to both the Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and the Peugeot 107. The 2-Tronic semi automatic gearbox fitted to these vehicles is effectively just a regular 5-speed manual gearbox with two actuators attached to it – one responsible for engaging and disengaging the clutch, and the other responsible for actually changing gears.

As a result, the Peugeot 107 automatic gearbox is not going to be as smooth as a regular torque converter auto transmission or even a dual clutch automatic – as it is mechanically exactly the same as a manual gearbox – you just don’t have a clutch or a conventional gear stick. As a result, you may find that if you put your foot down the power isn’t immediately there – as the gearbox may want to change down to give you extra power. While this will be quicker than if you were driving a manual and you changed down, it’s still not going to be as quick or as smooth as a proper automatic gearbox.

Additionally you may also notice that moving off is not as smooth as other automatic cars – again because the gearbox has to slip the clutch for you as opposed to you doing it yourself with a clutch pedal.

You can put the transmission in “E” mode (meaning “easy”) and have it handle all the gears for you, or you can put it in “M” mode (manual) and control the gears either by pulling back to change up or pushing forward to change down (marked as “+” or “-” on the gear stick itself) or you can use the flappy paddles at the rear of the steering wheel.

Loud clicking and groaning noises

This could be a number of different things. It’s worth mentioning that opening the window may make this obvious in a way that you didn’t notice it before, and especially noticeable on a hot day. You may notice a very loud clicking noise as you’re driving or as the gearbox is moving through the gears – this is actually normal and is the high power actuators inside the gearbox doing the gear changing. This can be accompanied with a groaning noise – which is the spring in the actuator that engages and disengages the clutch rubbing against the internals of the clutch itself. 

If this is your experience, then this is normal operation and as long as the gearbox works properly, you should leave it alone. However, there are a number of other things this could be – the factory clutch on the 107 is a little bit prone to failure, particularly the drive straps on the pressure plate, and this can cause a knocking or clicking noise when taking power. Generally when having the clutch replaced, garages will put in an upgraded unit which is a lot less prone to failure than the factory clutch pack – so if you are noticing the clicking and banging when taking power, this is something you should get checked out.

Something definitely worth mentioning (and will apply to all the points below) is that the actuators inside the gearbox require a lot of power to run, and if your battery is beginning to fail you may notice strange things happening with your gearbox. If your battery is over five years old and you’re experiencing gearbox problems, it may be a useful first step to switch out the battery just to see if the problem persists.

Difficulty selecting some gears

This is nearly always an actuator problem. As we’ve discussed, the Peugeot 107 automatic gearbox is basically just a manual gearbox with high powered electric actuators that change the gears for you and operate the clutch. Generally when you have difficulty selecting only some gears, this is because one of the actuators (which are basically just electric motors with brushes inside the gearbox) has failed or is failing – meaning only certain gears will engage.

The technical explanation for this is either one of the motor brushes has become too short to make proper contact, or that there is conductible residue from brush wear. If you actually hit the actuator (and if you’re stuck at the side of the road, bizarrely this might actually help you limp home just by hitting the gearbox a couple of times) you sometimes can get the residue to move or for the brush to make contact and the gear engage.

This is likely to be an expensive job and will result in the gearbox coming out of the vehicle and likely the electric motors/actuators being replaced. You may find it cheaper and easier just to replace the gearbox with a reconditioned one – this should limit the amount of time your car is off the road.

This is unlikely to be a clutch issue – as if it was, you’d probably have difficulty engaging all of the gears. The clutches are notoriously bad on the 107, Aygo and C1 range and especially if you’re on a factory clutch, they can give problems. 

You may also want to check the transmission fluid as a quick fix. There’s no dipstick on the 107 so you would need either to drain and refill the gearbox (using the drain plug underneath the car and the breather at the top of the gearbox to put the fluid back in) or you could do a top up and see how much fluid the gearbox takes. The 107 doesn’t use any kind of special ATF – it needs 1.7L of regular 75W-80 or 75W-90 GL-4 manual gearbox fluid, which can be had at any reputable motor factors or even from Peugeot themselves at a reasonable price.

Loss of all gears

This is generally a clutch problem. The Peugeot 107 semi-auto gearbox doesn’t have a clutch pedal, but it does have a clutch assembly – it’s just controlled by an actuator. As we mentioned in the previous section sometimes these actuators can fail – and if the clutch actuator has failed then it will be impossible for you to select any gears.

It’s also possible that the clutch has worn out – as mentioned the clutches on these cars are very weak and the factory clutches have been known to wear out inside 30,000 miles in some cases. You could also have problems with the clutch fork or release bearing not engaging and disengaging the clutch properly (listen out for a loud screeching sound when trying to engage a gear if you think this might be the case).

Irrespective of what the problem is, if it’s clutch related it’s unlikely to be a quick, cheap fix – so prepare for a gearbox out job and a new clutch. What you might want to do (and this has been mentioned before in another section) is check that your battery is providing enough power – if the problem is with the clutch actuator, you might find that it’s actually because the battery isn’t providing enough power for the actuator to work properly. Swap your battery out with a known good one and test again – if the gears engage you know you have a broken battery.

Jerky shifting

This again is usually a clutch issue. It can be one of two things – either the clutch is worn and is unable to engage gears smoothly (exactly as a worn clutch would feel on a proper manual with a clutch pedal) or the clutch actuator has failed or is failing. The clutch actuator on these cars does need resetting quite often, and what can seem like a failing or slipping clutch is actually an actuator that is not engaging properly and needs to be reset.

You should have the clutch assembly looked at by a technician if you are experiencing jerky shifting – either it’s a gearbox out, new clutch job or just a clutch actuator reset which should be a bit cheaper.

Check out some of our other gearbox/transmission related articles!