Can not select 5th gear at all

[Mad_mike]

Hey guys
Car has been driving fine with no gearbox issues. Never had problems selecting gears etc and today, with no advance warning, the car will not go into 5th gear??
Drove home about 60 miles in 4th and it's not the end of the world, but annoying!

To describe it better, the gearstick will travel in all directions, but when I try to push into 5th, it's like 5th gear has just disappeared
So for example, for 1st and second, I have to push lever to left and then forward or back, for 5th, it travels to the right, but just wont complete the forward movement. It will still work in reverse when I pull back
Any ideas please?

movement.jpg
As per above image, the red line is the only bit that will not travel

[zollaf]

does yours have the cable linkages. sounds like something is jamming, rather than a gearbox fault. i would disconnect the cables and see if you can manually select 5th. i know the sharan has a problem where a bearing siezes up in the tower on top of the gearbox, with a similar result.

[Mad_mike]

Hi. Many thanks for the reply. Not sure to be honest. Raining, gales blowing outside, so will take a peek tomorrow
Not great when it comes to gearboxes etc.
Would know my way around top of engine, but apart from that, I think there is going to be a lot of guess work as to where to look etc
As a matter of interest, when it happens on the Sharan, is there ANY warning in advance or does it literally just work one minute and then stop?
Up to this evening, it never gave any trouble selecting gears at all which is odd

[zollaf]

it just stops in the sharan. a bearing gets wet, rusts and jams. one minute fine, next minute nothing. if you look at your gearbox whilsts someone goes through the gears you will see the selector moving, then when going into 5th you will know where it needs to go, so you then have to work out if its gearstick, cable or linkage thats causing the problem.

[Peter D]

3 Letter gearbox code off the ID coding label would help. Regards Peter

[ianhayter]

Hi Mike,

Exactly the same thing happened to me this morning in an 2002 2.0 litre petrol Passat, 166000 miles on the clock. Feels like there has never been a 5th gear, like you're pushing the lever into a solid piece of metal, other 4 plus reverse all fine. Did you get to the bottom of the problem, if so can you share the answer please?

Cheers

Ian