umm got fabia back from its MOT yesterday, drove it home...fine.

Basically for a while - well 2 weeks, it's made what i'd call a high pitched whine - sounded like a bearing maybe? but it only appeared once i'd changed into 5th.

Today driving down south to see the parents....on the A1....ignored the whine, usual drive home. about half way home, the NOISE christ. it was like something just went, so I limped the 160 miles home...in 4th. basically 5th gear is totally unusable. any ideas what it could be? sounds like its knocking/grating when in 5th, really does sound awful, yet all other gears are fine.

ideas?

deffo sounds like the box..... 5th gear appears to have died... if all the other gears are fine, then it's not final drive, diff, drive shafts, wheel bearings ect, has to be the 5th gear in the box itself :(

however, I'm not a mechanic, so don't take my word for it! I did have a citroen BX that had no 3rd gear though (similar symptoms to what you describe) and i simply drove around it! lol... but then it was a £400 car that i sold a year later for £300 ... when gearbox rebuilds cost £500 then it doesn't matter on that sort of car... but yours may be worth thousands!

is it under warranty?

Hopefully you have some warranty, as the dealer wont dismantle the box to diagnose the fault. Standard practice is to get a whole new gearbox and swap it out.

If you dont have a warranty, find a gearbox specialist who will disasemble the box and fix it for you. It will not be cheap, but should be cheaper than a gearbox.

LOL.

the car is 6 years old....ticked over 100,000 miles on wednesday...somehow i think the warranty...just might be out of date LOL.

cheers for the advice though. drove it cambridge to leeds today, using 4th, seemed fine. neighbours gonig to have a look at it in a few weeks time - specialist automatic gearbox garage (despite mine being a manual) and see if it's repairable. no worried about a new box...it's had more than its fair share of use, just a damn shame!

if he opens it up i'll get some photos for you all of the carnage

Hope you get lucky & that he/they are able to sort it. I'd have thought with their knowledge of auto boxes they should be ok with a manual oneat least.

Good luck