On our way to Sweden Friday, we stopped in Santa Rosa CA to test drive a used 03 with 4500 miles on it. Car looked great, hubby and I jumped in and started her up.
Everything looked great (though we failed to notice the glowing abnormality at first LOL) except hubby could not get the car in reverse! First he thought he had not gotten it into gear, but then he tried again...and again...and again.
Now that alone was strange. He is not a novice when it comes to manual cars as that is all he has driven since he was 18 and he is 47! After MANY attempts and failures, he said, "WAH, it is a 5sp?" LoL!! Could not believe our eyes, the car had a 5sp shifter knob. Was not sure if it was the stock shifter but definitely was not a 6sp knob! We asked the dealer (who was just holding the car for us to drive) what was up and he did not know anything about the car!
Everytime he tried to back the car up, it would go forward. Reverse is far right and up, correct? And even so we he tried far right and down, still the car would not go into reverse.
We called the local dealer who found the car for us and told him what happened and he said the knob was changed. He suggested we go back and drive the car, since we were so disgusted we just left without driving it, but we were no longer interested after that.
Doesnt look like we are having much luck with finding an 03, does it? LoL!
Cindy