What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
VW Golf TDI Gearbox fault or Clutch? - Mike L
Morning all,

I've just had to take my Golf (2001 TDI 115 6spd) into the local VW dealers for a possible warranty repair to the gearbox.

At least I hope the warranty will cover it.

On Saturday afternoon, I lost reverse gear & could only get this
back by switching off the ignition & then changing gear.

On Sunday,Reverse gear was OK but 1st & 2nd didn't work. They seemed to engage OK , but no drive. 3rd & 4th were OK. I didn't try 5th or 6th.

I managed to drive it down to the dealers in 3rd gear but their
first diagnosis was 'Sounds like the Clutch' .

Is that possible? I hadn't had any slippage before or now & the car does go into 3rd & 4th OK.

I hope it's not the clutch because that may not be covered by the warranty.

Any ideas?

Regards
Mike L
VW Golf TDI Gearbox fault or Clutch? - RichardW
Not sure what you mean by 'didn't work'? Crunched as you were putting it in gear (this would suggest the clutch not disengaging properly), or just couldn't select the gear.

It sounds to me more like the latter, which suggests to me that the side to side selector on the gearbox has dropped off (there are usually 2 selctors on modern boxes, often cables, one of which makes the backwards/forwards selection and one makes the left/right selection.) Whether it's inside or outside the box it should be a warranty job - but if they do drop the box off (internal fault), it might be worth having them stick a new clutch in anyway (depending on how many miles it's done) as it will only cost about 1/2 hours labour, plus the parts - compared to 7 or 8 hours when it is worn out!


--
RichardW

Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
VW Golf TDI Gearbox fault or Clutch? - Mike L
Hi Richard

What happened was that when I changed gear, it seemed as if the gear had properly selected without any crunching or play in the lever; however when I applied the accelerator there was no movement of the car. The clutch seems to engage/disengage fine on all other gears.

When the problem first appeared (on Saturday) , then it seemed as if there was no reverse gear present to engage. Reverse was working yesterday though.

I note your comment about a clutch replacement. The car has done 59,000 miles (Warranty limit is 60,000 !) , but most of my driving is motorway based. I think I'll ask them to assess the clutch when it's out. Hopefully starting in 3rd & driving 10 miles to the dealers hasn't caused too much further wear on the clutch.

Mike L
VW Golf TDI Gearbox fault or Clutch? - Civic8
I could be mistaken but it does sound like selector problems ie gearbox.let us know what it is/was?
VW Golf TDI Gearbox fault or Clutch? - DL
I'd agree - an internal selector fault seems likely.

Clutch? At 59K? I'd replace it. Don't bother assessing it. Just replace it - if you are going to keep the car, that is.
--
groups.msn.com/honestjohn - Pictures say a thousand words..... Reply | Report as offensive | Link
VW Golf TDI Gearbox fault or Clutch? - Mike L
The latest is that the garage have decided that it is a gearbox problem & they are currently waiting for a VW warranty inspector to view the car & confirm that it will be covered by warranty.


VW Golf TDI Gearbox fault or Clutch? - JamZ
be careful with VW clutches though - my diesel polo had a dual-mass flywheel (which also has to be replaced at the same time as the clutch), and the total bill was £590 at a well-known national chain of independent clutch fitters (it later turned out, they\'d managed to fit a faulty flywheel and then refused to pay for a refund - I complained but didn\'t get anywhere). I dread to think how much it would cost at a main dealer.
VW Golf TDI Gearbox fault or Clutch? - Mike L
The final verdict was a broken selector fork in the gearbox.

As the car's now been off the road for 2 weeks , VW UK authorised the fitting of a replacement box under warranty rather than repair.

They will pick up the bill of £2700+VAT for the gearbox, I pay £165+VAT for a new clutch (parts only).

The car is a personal import & I 'topped-up' the warranty from the original 1 year to 3 years after reading one of the letters in the HJ column back in 2001/02 when HJ advised was that this would be a good move given the potential cost of replacing major components.

Regards
Mike L