car doesn't like reverse.

[murder-of-crows]

I drive an '03 convertible 5-speed manual, and the shifter is really difficult to get into reverse. Don't worry, I know to push down, then move it over. Sometimes it slides in just fine, but other times I push down and move it right, but when I try to move it up into gear, it will not go. Even when I let up on the clutch to try to "suck it in", it just makes this awful spinning-grinding sound and doesn't go in. Most of the time I can get it in right away or with a couple of tries, but once I spent half an hour sitting in my garage before, trying to put the car into reverse without success. (I had to push the car out in neutral onto the street. It was awful.)

Granted, it only happened that bad once, but I'm worried its going to turn into something worse. It has 62,000 some miles on it, if that means anything.

If you know anything about this, I'd love to learn more. Thanks!

[Smileybug]

Might try adjusting the shift linkage. Any issues getting into other gears? Reverse is notoriously difficult in VWs. Mine can be a little problematic at times too. I've found that if I can get the car to move a little, it will go into reverse pretty consistantly.

[woofster]

As mentioned above, VWs tend to exhibit this difficult-to-engage reverse gear. I've had a number of VWs with a manual transmission in the past and what I've found that helps is to shift into another gear first, e.g. 1st gear (do not engage the clutch, of course), then shift back into Neutral before trying Reverse again. This is to try to should shift the teeth just slightly so that it will slide more smoothly into R.