Luvvin it - BUT! (changing down problem)

Hi everyone - from the Garden of England

Just bought our first Octavia a week ago - veeery impressed. Not an expensive buy - 1.9 non-turbo diesel £1495 on a V plate with 100k on the clock & the bodywork hasn't been particularly looked after.

One problem - when changing down it's reluctant, to say the least, to go into 2nd from 3rd. Is this a known fault that develops? If so, is it likely to be in the gearbox or is there some linkage between the gearchange lever & the box that could be the source of the problem?

Or something else?

Chaning up's smooth & the clutch doesn't come in early so I don't think that's dragging.

My thoughts are: If it's in the box it's likely to cost more to fix than we paid for the car so add something like Slick 50 to the oil, see if that improves it & run it until it packs up altogether. Then get it sorted.

If it's a linkage problem, that's probably cheaper.

Thanks in advance.

Ian

Hi, When I had my Octy had a similar problem to this, sometimes didn't like changing gear quickly, I renewed the bush on the dog-leg mount, the one that goes between the bottom of the gearbox and the body/chassis, this made a world of difference, I put a uprated one on but the old one was shot allowing the engine/gearbox to move a bit causing the linkage to move out of line until the torque comes off the engine.
Hope this helps,
Alan.

Thanks Alan

I've noticed in some other threads (VW Golf gear changind problems etc) that the subject of engine mountings comes up quite a lot in this connection. We'll get ours checked out. After 113k miles it wouldn't be a surprise to discover they're past their best.

Ian

known concern on the Octavia-check quality and level of oil in gear box, replace with mineral oil not synthetic. should make a diff, also lubricate the shifter cables and the shift lever which goes into the gear box using an anti sust spray- moiture gets retained in the well around the shifter shaft.

Thanks Mukesh.

We did return it, together with a print out of emails to date, to the garage that supplied it. They seem to have sorted out the changing down into 2nd problem - but now it's often difficult to get into first when stationary, so I don't think they've really addressed the issue(s).

The car's actually my wife's &, living in the sticks, she depends on it every day but hopefully we can get it in somewhere in the Summer.

Ian