I drove up to Yorkshire from London over the weekend and on about 6 occasions whilst cruising in 5th gear, it suddenly "popped" in to neutral.

This seemed to happen when I took my foot off the accelerator when cruising.

It is a MY99 and has done around 25000 miles.

I tried to recreate in 4th as well but 5th seems to be the only culprit.

Has anyone experienced this before? There doesn't seem to be any other gear problems and the car is running fine otherwise

I am worried that this could be the start of serious gear box problems.

Peter

 

Get the car to a dealer NOW before serious damage is done to your gearbox. Avoid using 5th on the way.

Mike

 

mine has done that from new!!

Pain in the but !


didnt know it was seroius though!!!

Thanks

Denz

 

It sounds as if its one of 2 thing, not enough fluid in the gearbox or your 5th is on its way out, either way if you dont get it seen to your going to be facing a rather large bill for a new gearbox or minimum of a replacement 5th gear sync
Happened to me in an old renault 19 i had, cost me 125 quid to get it sorted and thats a cheap n cheerful gearbox!!!

Tony

 

This happened to my Father some years ago with a Rover 216!

It turned out to be the 5th gear selector that was broken. It then took 8 weeks to ship the part from Japan (Honda gearbox), in which time he was given a Sierra Sapphire which he proceeded to bash into a lampost!! Best place for it apparently!

But to get back on thread, defo needs to goto the garage and get them to diagnose the problem fully.

Jamie

 

Have jsut spoken to a few garages - two of whom knew of the problem straight away. Apparently it is a nut in the gear box that is working loose. The earliest I can get it to the nearest dealer is this Saturday, but they said it is OK to drive in the mean time, but try to avoid using 5th.

Is this sound advice????? I need to use the car on Wednesday for work - not sure what to do!!!!!

Cheers
Peter

 

Tell the garage that your going to be doing some miles over the next week and you will need to use 5th alot, if you can get round them they may give you a coutesy car for the week but it depends on if you like justy's or not but it'll save your gear box

Tony

 

Same problem here. (At least the symptoms are identical.)

Phoned my dealer.

They asked if it would wait until my next service.

Told them I thought it may need looking at more urgently than that.
They agreed to have me come in this week so a mechanic can take it out for a test run "to put my mind at rest."

How worried should I be?

Rich

EDITED FOR SPELLING

[This message has been edited by RichS (edited 19 March 2001).]

 

From our friendly Prodrive representative:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Get the car to a dealer <B>NOW</B> before <B>serious damage</B> is done to your gearbox. Avoid using 5th on the way.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
( My emphasis )
I think it would be safe to say you should be fairly worried.

 

Get the car to the dealer asap, and don't wait to the next service.

David

 

You should get the car to a dealer ASAP, mine did this, you could end up needing a new gearbox (could take weeks) if you do not get this sorted SOON ! ALL DEALERS know about this it was a groupwide bulletin !!!!

 

Peter l,

I had the identical problem with mine at 15,000 miles. Whenever cruising along say, a dual carriageway at 4,000 revs, and Mr. HGV decides to pull out & and you ease off the throttle. When that bloke in the 40-footer pulls in and you accelerate to get away, you realise you're in neutral, because your rev counter says 6,000 revs+ and you aint going any faster

This could well be (as in my case) 5th. Synchromesh has had its day. This was immediately identified by the guys that service my car by taking it down the road and hitting 5th. early (25 mph.) and lifting the throttle. Hey presto when he pressed it again we were in neutral.

Adams of Aylesbury had mine in and out again in half a day on warranty.

Now i need them to look at reverse when i've got time, as it jumps out occasionally.

Regards, Shaun



[This message has been edited by Shaunoss (edited 19 March 2001).]

 

I can only reiterate what Mike from Prodrive has Said. Get your Car to a Dealer NOW.
We have seen a few cars with the exact same complaint. They all had the same internal fault in the gearbox.
The stake nut on the back of the input shaft comes loose, thus enabling 5th gear to walk back & forth on the shaft, hense it dropping out of gear.
If you don't get it looked at before the nut falls off you will end up with a very expensive repair!!

Phil

 

Thanks for all the advice.
It is booked in to the garage on Saturday and I won't be driving it before then.

I am assuming that this is a warranty claim (the car still has a year and a half of the warranty left.

Also, if the nut did fall off and cause worse damage would this also be covered under warranty???? Especially as none of the garages I spoke to warned me against driving it (thanks to Scoobynet again!)

Cheers
Peter

 

Okay,

I've been to my dealer today and here's the score:

My car is 11 months old.
I've had the popping out of 5th gear problem for a few months now, but it doesn't happen often.

In fact I think it's happened about five times at the most, and hasn't occured in the last three weeks.
It was something I'd made a note of to mention at the next service.

THEN I READ THIS THREAD!

The Subaru dealer seemed to know about the problem and pretty much gave a word for word explanation as Barretts Motorsport's post. (above)
The dealer's senior technician took the car out for a test drive, but could not make it pop out of fifth. (As I expected - it doesn't do it on demand.)

Anyway, they seemed confident that it would be okay for a few weeks, and when I book in for a service, they intend to replace the 5th gear and the stake nut under warranty.

I'm fairly happy with this.
The dealers technician said that I would be losing 5th very regularly if the stake nut was about to go, which in his opinion it isn't.

If it does 'go' prior to the fix, presumably the whole thing will be covered, particularly as the dealer has given it the 'all clear.'

Any more thoughts?


Rich

 

Rich,

If they said that fine, but my tip would be get it in writing. Funny how peoples memory's evaporate when confronted with a bill.

Dave

 

Peter,
Did you get it sorted?

 

Picked up the car on Saturday, drove 400 motorway miles and it didn't pop out once!

So hopefully that has cured it.

Cheers
Peter

 

This used to happen with my Golf GTI a few years back. Cost me a new gearbox