1998 Audi A4, transmission grinding

sof

It is a 1998, 1.9tDi, 112000 miles, manual 5 speed transmission, clutch recently replaced. Fourth gear grinds majority of time when engaging. Rest of gears work fine. Seems to happen less if revs are low. Same if changing up or down a gear.

crosstownk

If the clutch is fine and the grinding is only in 4th, then there is a good chance that there is a fault in the gearbox - possibly a dodgy syncromesh.

sof

Thanks. Would that involve a full gearbox change or can it be fixed on it's own? Expensive to fix (generally)?

crosstownk

There are gearbox specialists than can fix most gearbox faults. Common practice is that they sell you a reconditioned gearbox and they take your faulty box as part exchange and, in turn, they recondition it and sell it on.

Have your car checked by a mechanic before you condemn the gearbox!

Timmaay

Or...ya could just try to avoid using 4th gear altogether, rev it out in 3rd and jump straight to 5th:p, thats what my uncle did with an old pug 205 which was missing 2nd gear, it wasn't worth fixing the 'box so he just drove it like that for a year or so till he scraped it. I haven't heard of 4th gear going on in a gearbox before, its usually 1st and reverse (no syncro/straight cut gears on reverse) that gets the abuse.

blackbox

Don't worry if it's only a synchro - all this affects is the smooth gearchange. Once in the gear it has no impact. It might be a good idea to change the gear oil though to get rid of the bits of loose metal from the synchro.

With a bit of practice you'll be able to change gear without grinding - it's a matter of matching the gearbox speed to the engine speed.