Can anyone help please? I have a 1999 Ford Fiesta and suddenly my gear lever, no longer returns to the "centre" position. I can change gear although care must be taken to select third rather than fifth. My local ford dealer has suggested that I need the entire gear change assembly replaced whilst an independant garage suggests the fault is not in the linkage but in the gearbox itself. Has anyone come across this before please? More importantly what do I need to fix it?
Bert
Your local Ford dealer might be aware of something I don't know about, but it sounds to me like it's just the return spring that's knackered. Are all the gearchanges smooth and as they should be? If so, the gearbox is probably ok.
There's a spring that makes the gearstick naturally return to the 3rd/4th position, and it sounds like this has either stretched, snapped, or come off. It was like that on my old Mk3 Escort, and I can't imagine a small detail like this, or at least the principle behind it, has changed that much.
Peter
I'll go along with the spring theory. I also had the same problem with an Escort. The spring fits onto a lug on the bottom of the gear lever (uderneath the car) and to a point on the underframe.
Ray.
AFAIK, the Fiesta uses the same gearbox as the Focus (the iB5). The spring failing is a *very* well known problem on the Focus (mine went a couple of months ago). Basically the spring snaps. The symptoms are as you described.
The Fiesta may be different, but in the Focus the spring is about 1" behind the gear lever, and is accessed by removing the trim panel around the gear lever. The spring costs about 80 pence and takes 10 - 20 minutes to replace. It's a straight forward job but a bit fiddly.
I would suggest you steer well clear of your local Ford dealer and the aforementioned independant garage (both of whom appear to be taking the p**s).
Let me know if you need any more info.
HTH,
Chris.
I was going to say that.
To the OP - even if you don't fancy tackling this yourself, the labour charge for this should be around £20 absolute max, so not expensive even getting a garage to do it. Take it to a garage that doesn't bullshit you though.
Peter
Thank you all very much for your input. In view of the advice I was intending putting the car on ramps this morning to but it's far too wet for that. I'm off to look at a workshop manual so that I can see what I should be looking for. I'll report back.
regards
AstraVanMan wrote (apparently) in uk.rec.cars.maintenance on Thu 24 Jul 2003 22:45:18:
20 quid first time, 12.50 second, fiver third time on ours...MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.