Car pops out of 5th gear

Tony Danza

Just since yesterday, my car seems to pop out of 5th gear into neutral (usually when cruising along around 50/60 mph). I've been looking about on the net, some people saying that it could be some synchroniser (I'm not going to pretend I know what this is) could be gone along with some other suggestions. But, what I don't like is that I have seen a lot people saying that this is going to eventually result in a new gearbox. When I was driving home yesterday, I was fiddling about with the gears, and I can push it from 5th gear to neutral fairly easily, but it won't budge in the other 4 gears.

I'm bringing it to a mechanic tomorrow, but I thought I'd post here for people's opinions/views on this. Or if somebody can reassure me that this won't cost a fortune to fix!

Stephen

I'd say by "synchroniser" you mean synchromesh. I don't know much (at all ) about gearboxes and clutches and the like but I do remember my mother's Opel Corsa having a similar problem where it wouldn't stay in 2nd gear and that was it. Wasn't expensive to get fixed either.

What kind of car is it? Mileage?

Tony Danza

Stephen wrote: »

I'd say by "synchroniser" you mean synchromesh. I don't know much (at all ) about gearboxes and clutches and the like but I do remember my mother's Opel Corsa having a similar problem where it wouldn't stay in 2nd gear and that was it. Wasn't expensive to get fixed either.

What kind of car is it? Mileage?

Yeah, perhaps, I'm just trying to recall what I read this morning!

It's a Peugeot 406 coupe, it's got just over 75k miles on it.

Max_Damage

Synchromesh most likely. Same thing happens every now and again to my father's Fiesta. Best thing would be to probably source a gearbox from a scrappy if the car is getting on in years, otherwise bring it to a gearbox specialist.

There is a gearbox specialist in Rathfarnham (near Nutgrove shopping centre) but I don't have any other details about them.

Happened to me before except it was first and third. A bearing had been damaged in the gearbox.

The whole thing had to be replaced. Thank **** for the warranty. Trying to get it to the garage using only 2nd and 4th gear was fun

Edit;

What make of car is it OP?

Tony Danza

Thought I'd update this thread. So here's the story so far, on Monday this week, when I drove to and from work the car popped out of gear from 5th on 2 occasions to work and 2 occasions from work. Since then it hasn't popped out of gear at all, it's been fine. On Monday, I tried to see if I could take it out of gear without holding the clutch, which I could do, now I can't seem to do this.

I rang Mr. Gearbox about this to bring it to them, they told me I need a new 5th gear, which is 400 euro plus VAT.

Obviously I don't want to part with 500 euro if I don't have to. So I'm looking for advise here. Does somebody understand why it would pop out of gear at the start of this week and it not now? Could it be something stupid like there was something stuck behind the clutch and I just didn't hold it down fully, so there isn't actually a problem here and it was a freak occurrence?

Danbo!

Not sure if its related, but a mate of mine was told at his last service that he'd be needing a new clutch soon (99 Octavia). 2 weeks later, the gears started acting up and he could only get 2nd and 4th, so assumed the clutch had gone. Brought it in to be fixed, turns out the oil cap fell into the gear box blocking 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Oil cap secured, the gears are now fine...

Henry Ford III

1st things 1st.

1/. Is there oil in the gearbox?

2/. Check for a broken engine mount.

ART6

Henry Ford III wrote: »

1st things 1st.

1/. Is there oil in the gearbox?

2/. Check for a broken engine mount.

As a start I'd look at 2/ as suggested by HF. It doesn't have to be a broken mount -- a loose one will do just as well. The 5th gear location slot is generally on the outside of the gear lever slots, and so any excessive movement or twisting of the engine/geabox assembly will pop it out of gear. Won't usually affect lower gears as the location slots are nearer to the centre line of the box.

pontovic

The same thing happened to me on a Mazda 323 I had over in London and it turns out that apparently the oil from the gearbox leaked out. Car kept popping out of 5th gear on the motorway and then suddenly the only gear working is 1st and 4th gear. The geabox made this awful grinding sound as we drove up through London. Not a nice experience.

Tony Danza

Henry Ford III wrote: »

1st things 1st.

1/. Is there oil in the gearbox?

2/. Check for a broken engine mount.

OK, I'll check these when I'm out of work and post back here tomorrow.

In short do you think the guy telling me to get a new 5th gear is a bit presumptuous? I just described the problem over the phone and that's what he said straight away. What would you people do in my situation? Should I just wait until this starts happening again before going down the road of getting a new gear? Obviously that depends on me checking the 2 suggestions above.


EDIT: Just to update this I rang another gearbox place to see what they'd say, and again straight away the guy said it probably needs a new 5th gear.

ART6

Tony Danza wrote: »

OK, I'll check these when I'm out of work and post back here tomorrow.

In short do you think the guy telling me to get a new 5th gear is a bit presumptuous? I just described the problem over the phone and that's what he said straight away. What would you people do in my situation? Should I just wait until this starts happening again before going down the road of getting a new gear? Obviously that depends on me checking the 2 suggestions above.


EDIT: Just to update this I rang another gearbox place to see what they'd say, and again straight away the guy said it probably needs a new 5th gear.

It's possible it might, but I would think that in that case it would be because the gear teeth were worn and unable to engage fully. Then I would expect it to pop out of gear when you are accelerating more than when cruising. I'd still go with HF's suggestion of checking the engine mounts before doing anything else since I have experienced gears dropping out of engagement when the engine/gearbox was simply rocking too much. Go for the expensive cure when you've ruled out the cheap ones:)