This morning i set off from home to my local town centre and pulled out of my road in first gear and the car got to about 2-3000 rev and i heared abit of a knock from the gearbox and lost power. When trying to accelerate you can hear a knocking sound coming from the gearbox like its catching on something when the gearbox is rotating. Does anybody have an idea of what the problem could possibly be without taking the gearbox apart or had a similar issue? and is it repairable or would it be a new gearbox?

Well it's either the flywheel that's gone or the gearbox itself.

Have you had any other problems like difficult to engage/crunchy gears? Any whining noises?

Mine recently did this and the bearings had gone in the box. There was a loud knocking noise at tickover that went away when I pressed the clutch in.

Phil

Hi Phil thanks for the reply . I suppose first gear was a little stiff sometimes but im only young so that might be normal for the age of my car. All the other gears where really easy though. You cannot hear the noise until you put the car in gear and it happens in all gears. Iv since been told that the main drive shaft has gone but can this be diagnosed without taking the gearbox apart ? Iv not noticed and whinning noises either.

Someone with some knowhow could probably rule things out and narrow the noise down but without opening up the box you won't know fully.

I think this is what happened to mine and they said a couple of the gears had smashed and also some damage to the casing.

Basically it had to rebuilt.

How many miles on the car?

Phil

Thanks again Phil. Its done nearly 80k 1 prev owner and full servie history so as far as i knew it had been looked after but apprently gearbox's on my model arnt very good, its a 1.2 classic 03reg, its being repaired now for 600 having a recon box fitted and i get to keep the old box to see what the prob was and fingers crossed it can be repaired and get abit of money for it

Yes unfortunately there are plenty of stories on the net of this happening to cars based on this platform.

It seems even cars well maintained etc have had problems and I've even seen reports on seat cupra of it happening with "new" cars (within warranty period) with 20k miles on them.

Hope you get it sorted. Ours is spot on now with the reconditioned box, new clutch and flywheel on.

Phil

This morning i set off from home to my local town centre and pulled out of my road in first gear and the car got to about 2-3000 rev and i heared abit of a knock from the gearbox and lost power. When trying to accelerate you can hear a knocking sound coming from the gearbox like its catching on something when the gearbox is rotating. Does anybody have an idea of what the problem could possibly be without taking the gearbox apart or had a similar issue? and is it repairable or would it be a new gearbox?

does the knock change with engine or road speed?

if engine speed looking at input side of gearbox / clutch / flywheel / engine

if road speed diff / driveshaft / wheel hub etc

the driveshaft (certainly on a mk1 vrs) can be removed from gearbox by undoing 6 x 10mm splined boltsthis will allow you to check the drive shaft joints etc, or jack the whole front up and turn the front wheels and see if you have any play in the drive shafts and check the gaiters on the joint and the CV for damage

what is confusing me is the loss of power? did the clutch seem to slip? or engine reduce power? as a driveshaft / gearbox issue will not normally lead to loss of power

no fluid or oil leaks i am assuming?

Edited 23 August, 201213 yr by bluecar1