JMKad

Hey my fellow brothers and sisters, I have a problem with my car. It's an 1.8 Quattro 5 speed manual. Well here is what happened.

I was at a light, turns green and goes into 1st. Try to go into second and that wouldn't happened. Got to the side of the road and tried to put it into any gear but it could only go into 5th. To go into any other gear it takes a lot of arm power just to push it into a gear. It drove but I had to use a lot of strength just to get it into gear. I got it at a mechanics right now but they won't open till the morning.

Anybody have any ideas on what is going on?

pkvoss

bad clutch? how many miles?

ezveedub

If it goes into gear with the engine off, but will not when the engine is running, then you have a failure in the clutch pressure plate, clutch disc come apart or the clutch release assembly (clutch fork, or slave for the release bearing). If everything seems fine when depressing the clutch, but still has issues shifting, its usually a broken pressure plate release finger.

lyleswk

Mods?

JMKad

The car has no mods and is around 85000 miles. Didn't try to shift when the car is off but when it was on it took a serious amount of strength just to get it into gear. I can depress the floor clutch with no problem, it's just the stick that is very hard to get into gear.

lyleswk

I'm with ezvedub and pressure plate. Only other option I have heard of but is rare is a bent shift linkage, but that would require some serious hard shifting on your or previous owner part to damage.

JMKad

Turns out it was the pressure plate, all fixed up but wow. I will show you guys the pics later. I have never seen anything like this broken pressure plate. Once again thank you all for your help.

603racing

I had same symptoms... car would not go into gear while the car was running. I could put the car in gear then start it, but still could not shift between gears. Turned out to be air in the slave cylinder. Bled it and fixed the issue.

sandrajolly

Most quick oil change places can suck the 'old' fluid out & replace it thru the dip stick tube, without pulling the pan off the tranny. Much cheaper, cleaner, & not open the pan gasket drips. Give that a try & see if it's better....

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