I've had a little trouble recently going into first gear most of the time it happens in slow moving traffic going from 2nd to 1st very smoothly of course..... it just seems like there is a brick wall blocking it!

After a few gentle attempts it'll eventually go in but on roundabouts and stuff its starting to become a little bit of an issue now and again!

How many miles has the box done? A gear oil change may help, it did with mine. Still get it from cold sometimes but it is a lot smoother. Also adjusting the linkage sometimes helps.

HTH

I have the same issue but not got round to looking into yet.

Linkage adjust and fluid should do it though

How slow is 'slow-moving traffic'? Any car will be difficult to put into first above about 10mph, IME. I'm sure my driving instructor told me once upon a time that it's something to do with the synchromesh. SWMBO's Fabia had trouble getting into first, and she would put it in second THEN first as a work-around. Not heard anything about it for a while though, so don't know what came of it...???

It's getting close to 54k atm been meaning to check the gear box oil levels but just haven't got chance to get it up on any ramps.

ap0gee - definitely slower than 10mph, on the very odd occasion its actually done it from standing e.g. neutral to first!

I was paying close attention to it on the way into work this morning and I'm pretty sure that oil could be the issue. Is it's life actually specified anywhere? Even withing the VAG group?

It seems really stiff for the first 5-10 minutes of driving around then it'll slowly loosen up. I did a run to the damnation festival in leeds last weekend and by the time i hit leeds it felt like a new gear box again.

I've never seen VAG (or indeed most vehicle manufacturers) admit to an oil life, but ZF Transmissions recommend changing every 50_000 miles.

Incidentally, 2 to 1 is often a slow change anyway. My dad's car that I learnt to drive on was otherwise pretty sweet but needed about 2s to accept 2 to 1 at walking pace. It was slick enough when stationary though.

I might get it changed when i get my cam belt done just for the hell of it in that case.