So, lesson learnt - don't boast how your car has been near enough faultless to your colleagues as it will then decide to throw up a fault!

 

All was well this morning (after last night's boasting!!), and I popped out from work at lunchtime.  Drove back after a short run and went to engage reverse to park and it made a crashing as if I'd not put the clutch fully in or was rolling forwards.  Thought I'd done something wrong so tried again, all the while stationery, and another crunch.  Also noticed the stick was hard to push into position, and in trying to manoeuvre I put it into first - and this gear was also hard to engage.

 

So, in a nutshell, if the car is stationery (stationary?) reverse and first are hard to engage and reverse makes a crunch like the car was moving forwards when I did it, and there's a lurch.  Other gears are fine and if I'm slowly rolling, say above 3mph or so as I come to a junction, I can engage first without any resistance.  The gears all engage fine if the engine is off.

 

Anyone know of similarities?  I did try and search the forums but struggled to find anything as I'm not sure what to look for.  For reference, the car is about 3.5 years old, 1.6TDi with just under 105,000 miles on it (so I'm thinking wear and tear or gearbox oil maybe - I'm no mechanic!).  It was very hot today so may have contributed - will try again tomorrow morning when it's a bit cooler.  At the end of the day it's a company car so I'll be calling the garage on Monday unless it's something that will just go away.

 

Oh - and also had an odd electrical issue with the windows - convenience locking stopped working yesterday and the front near-side window wouldn't open/close on the auto push, I had to hold the button down to operate it.  However, now the gearbox is playing up the windows have now started working fine...go figure!

Clutch drag.

 

Hydraulic problem or oil contamination, more likely to be the former.

Thanks for the advice - I guess the key question is whether the car is still safe to drive until I can get it booked in, or is there a risk of the situation getting worse and me breaking down on the side of the road unable to get into gear?

It does sound like the clutch is dragging. Does the clutch pedal feel normal? Or a bit soft and spongy?

 

Anyway if it is a hydraulic problem eg leaking seal on the master cylinder, pumping the clutching might help. Ie several clutch down and up cycles in quick succession ending up with pedal down, then immediately try to get into gear.

 

Of course even if this does help, the problem isn’t going to fix itself and it’s likely to get worse over tIme.

It's booked in to the garage for Wednesday, so I'm driving to our nearer office for a couple of days to avoid the risk of breaking down miles from home.  Ironically this morning it felt fine, but the weather's a lot cooler than Friday which is the only think I can think might affect it?!

 

Pedal didn't feel any different that I noticed...