First of all I wanna say hi to everyone, it's my first post on this forum. I'm hoping to be a happy new audi owner. Here is the deal:

I'm in a process of buying a used, 110k miles, A4. It's a decent deal but only because it has a transmission problem. Namely, it doesn't shift into 2nd, 4th or reverse when the engine is running. With the engine off, I can get it into any gear I want. But when it's running, and I try putting it in reverse for example, its like something is stopping the shifter. However there are no engine or gear noises.

My first thought was that it would be the shifter linkages, but wouldnt that be ruled out by the fact that it shifts into all of the gears when its not running?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

That could be 2 things wrong with that transmission , 1. The cluch is busted and is not that expensive to fix or the syncro forks in the transmission are broken and that means the tranny has to be open and that is a little more expensive but not with much .

 

lol well idk about your other gears but did you know early model A4's require you to push your shifter down to go into reverse?

 

But is it common for the forks to break for just the bottom 3 gears? Also, wouldnt a messed up clutch mean I wouldnt be able to get into any gear?


Yes i knew that, but thanks for the tip

 

But is it common for the forks to break for just the bottom 3 gears? Also, wouldnt a messed up clutch mean I wouldnt be able to get into any gear?


Yes i knew that, but thanks for the tip

 

Bent clutch forks are very rare for the A4/Passat 1.8t, they are common on the transverse cars. I couldn't even bend my clutch fork with a 4800 lbs dual diaphram clutch kit over a period of 7 years. Haven't seen any A4 owners break the syncro forks.

It could be the syncros are bad on those gears or one of the shift linkage slider bolts are broken. The slider is inside the transmission and are held in place with 2 bolts that are located on either side of the housing with a very large torx head bolt.

This is what mine looked like when it broke and I had problems shifting into some of the gears.

 

Thanks!
Did you have to pull the transmission out to get that broken piece? Also, do you happen to remember what size torx that is?

 

No you dont. The one on the left side of the transmission is located right behind the slave cylinder and the other one is near the right axle flange. IIRC it is 55, but I can check on it tomorrow.

 

Finally I was able to get the car towed to my place. The symptoms have either changed a little or they were like this from the beginning and the previous owner didn't tell me the truth. Namely, the car drives fine in a gear that was engaged before the engine was started, but that is about it. Once the engine is running I can't shift it into any gear.

Tomorrow I will try finding those bolts that you told me about. Hopefully they are not too hard to find.

 

May be unrelated, but I had an issue in my 300zx where I could shift freely with the engine off, and couldn't shift with the clutch at all with the engine running. I had to powershift it by rev-matching. It turned out to be a spring in the pressure plate that broke out, turned sideways, and jammed the disk into the flywheel.

Just something to think about.