Hi,

My fabia's been pretty much stationary for a year, maybe driven 5000km in year and the shifter has become more and more "sticky". Yesterday I drove it and it had become almost impossible to engage reverse (and going from 1 to 2).

I did a reset of the linkage tonight and it's waaay better now.

However, the "stickyness" is still there.

I push down and pull the left to engage reverser and it's sort of sticky, there is resistance. Then when I'm disengaging reverse going to neural and just release the know it just stays there to the left. When the car was new it sprung nicely to the center position.

Obviously something is not working properly.

Do you have any ideas what it could be? I'm not 100% familiar with the mechanism and where to search for faults. Maybe it's just a issue of adding some grease somewhere?

Gear box in reverse is fine, no problem driving and so on, no problem with the clutch either.

Please help, I was about to sell it but now it's stuck in my driveway

Observation after my monday commute to work:

- 1-5 works perfectly

- reverse works much better but still a bit sticky.

Seems to depend om temperature as it eas colder today.

Hi Premis, and a big welcome to the site.

Just a question or two if I may. Are you saying the gear lever is just 'sticky', offering resistance in reverse, 1st and 2nd when cold? Or...do the gears also 'grate' (make a nasty noise) as you engage them. For example, does reverse gear go in smoothly without any noise? Here are just some thoughts on what might be causing it for now.

It just might be the gear selector cable has become very sticky/stiff. Perhaps moisture has ingressed into it. Use will probably improve or cure the problem.

In addition, something that can cause similar or the same symptoms as you describe on a car with a manual gearbox is the clutch disc can become sticky on it's gear box output shaft splines. Sometimes this may only be slight stickyness and it goes away as the car is used over a few days. The cause is often corrosion on the output shaft. Some manufacturers assemble the clutch disc on the output shaft dry so as not to attract carbon dust which can causes this very situation over time if mixed with grease. But others use a special grease which is designed to not attract too much carbon, but which can go hard in cold conditions if left with the car unused for long periods. I don't know what has been done on your car in that area but it could be the suspect. Other things that can cause it are a sticky gear selector mechanism within the gearbox but usually this eases off ok with use. It possible the oil in the gearbox has become slighty too thickened or jellified if it has experienced very very low temps repeatedly without use and might need to be changed. This can happen to very old gearbox oil. I note you are in Sweden so maybe the temps have been very low.

Anyhoo, just some thoughts but it will probably be ok with some proper use. Good luck.

Thanks .

No there is no resistance (as it would be if the clutch was not properly engaged). The gears all engage smoothly in the gearbox, no grinding noises what so ever, feels solid.

If it was the cables I guess 1-5 would have had a hard time engaging also?

It's just the reverse, it feels more as if it's the shifter mechanism in the car itself that is is "sticky" and only in the reverse position. Maybe I can film it ..

The car's at 95000 km and the clutch or the gearbox has never been repaired. In fact I've never had any problems with the car at all.

The car has been standing still in my garage during -10to -20C for maybe a month without usage during the winter. Took som time until the shifter workes properly after that. Now it's been standing still a lot also during the heat (20-25C) but the effect was much worse.

I'll park my GTI for a week and drive the Fabia and see what happens .