Friday and my car would not select 1st, 2nd or reverse gears. If you selected these it went into third. My parents had the car as they were taking it to be valeted whilst I was at work so it was a bit hard on them when this fault occured.

Called out my breakdown service (CSMA who use Brittania) who came within the hour and found the fault to be the plastic bracket that connects the end of the selector cable to the gear box. Basically the plasticc had sheared off. The mechanic made a temporary repair using a long nut and bolt and some nuts as spacers and it seems as good as new however I've arranged for it to be fixed properly.

Is this a common fault? Are VW group cars being made with cheap least cost components with no regard to longevity and durability? Has this part been modified bearing in mind mine is a 99 model. I must admit that this car which I've had for 3 years done 70000m is nota patch on my old mk3 golf which had the same life and i sold at 12years old with 180000m on the clock

Maybe your just a bit rough with your stick:P . I havn't heard of this problem before.

The selector adjusters never break in my experience and they are quite clever in the way they allow adjustment to be made quickly. My Octavia VRS need a new selector slider when I was putting in the new engine and it came with a new adjuster so perhaps there is an issue I'm not aware of but I work on Golf 4/A3 etc all day long and haven’t seen one fail. And yes, VAG are using cheap parts too build cars these days, the 89>91 Golf 2 was the best built VW since the 67 T1.