I was teaching my son how to drive my '95 Golf which has a manual transmission, and somehow, I think he "disconnected" the shifter rod, so the car is stuck in 1st gear. When I move the shifter, it moves around too loosely, so there is something definitely wrong. I can't even get the car into reverse because it wants to go forward.
Is it a costly replair to have the shifter rod fixed by a mechanic?
It's about $50 in parts to rebuild a shifter. If you're drops down and doesn't spring back up when you move like you're going into reverse then you've busted the part on the shifter shaft itself. If you've got the up/down springiness then you've got a link broken elsewhere. Potentially you could have a broken part in the transmissions but it's pretty unlikely. What'd the kid do that precipitated this problem? Yank the hell outta the shifter or something?
I can't figure it out how it could of happened either... I just know that when he let out the clutch after shifting into 1st gear, he didn't give enough gas, and the engine stalled and the car jerked. Ever since that stall, the shifter became all out of whack.
And I do have the up/down springiness. It's just that when I put the car into the reverse gear, the car wants to go forward because I assume it is stuck in first gear. I had someone look to see if I had back up lights when I put the car in reverse, and the person said no back up lights come on.
I would get under the car (car turned off), and have someone shift for me. You should be able to see it moving around (in the the center of the car towards the back of the engine) then just have a look around for something thats hanging loose. Then you'll know what your up against.
You can take a look at the diagram here:
Will
Keith Murphy wrote:
Could be the "golf ball" in the center of the relay shaft popped out of the cage on the selector lever. As noted, have someone operate the shifter whuile you watch from under the hood and see what is going on (or not going on) as the case may be:
There's a short plastic selector rod which has a habit of breaking. It's about 3 inches long and is located on the linkage on the trans. It's a under $10 item. So check them closely.
Sounds like the engine moved too much on its mounts and broke something. Shift linkage parts external to the transmission are fairly inexpensive...it's just a matter of finding the broken one and replacing it. Might need to adjust the shifter afterwards too.
Hmm, probably yanked on the shifter but at an odd angle and broke the linkage. Tough to do but not impossible. Given a novice driver it's not too much of a surprise.
Yeah, it sounds like there's a linkage problem and not something more serious. This is something the average DIYer can handle. How many miles on the Golf? If it's a lot then it wouldn't hurt to rebuild it entirely. But if it's less than 60k or so then you could get by with just fixing the one or two links that are broken. They *could* have just popped loose but it's more likely at least one of them broke.
The parts are cheap and if you have a mechanic fix it you'll incur more labor than anything else.
-Bill Kearney
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