Only Have 3rd& 4th on 5 Speed

[Opelmania]

Help! I have a 98 2.0 5 speed and everything was normal last night and this morning on my way to work, then after driving for about 20 minutes and 10 miles, I couldn't get my car into 5th. I have had some minor issues with this before. Just had to make sure I went hard right then up for 5th. Couldn't get it in. Then at the red light, I think I'm in 1st, but no I'm in 3rd. Go to a parking lot and don't even have reverse. The gate is fine. I push down and go up and left like I'm in reverse, and it goes forward in 3rd. Limped the 12 miles home with only 3rd and 4th. Any ideas? This is supposed to be my first day back to work from a weeks vacation.

[Smileybug]

Sounds like your shift linkage broke. Same thing happened in mine. There is a plastic part in the linkage (only on the '98s and '99s, joy of joys) that tends to fail. This leads to losing all but 3rd and 4th. I just had mine go out in March (3 hours from home [I was at my parents house and out with them at the time] and 2 months before my wedding!). It sucked, but I have a great shop here in Raleigh. I called them freaking out and they told me what was wrong. You can get in there and adjust the shifter into any gear you need, but once you shift, you'll lose it. So if you need to reverse or be in 1st for a minute, you can. It was a $70 part and took little time for my shop to do. I bet once you replace it, you'll realize it was shifting like crap before it failed too...I know I did! The car has never shifted smoother

[Opelmania]

Saw you talking about it after I posted and searched. Thanks for posting. Found the broken part. Got to figure out how to take it off. Then go to dealer and get it. Here are a couple pics. Thanks again for the response and your previous postings. newbeetleorg. is GREAT!

[Smileybug]

Yup. Gotta love how VW makes important things plastic...

Apparently the '98 and '99 linkage setup is a wonderful mashup of Mk3 and Mk4. I had my shop replace it, so I'm not entirely certain how to replace it, though I don't think its too difficult. I think my dad would have tackled it if I had more time at their house/we could get the part easy (they live an hour from the closest VW dealer, so it just made more sense to have my dad tow my car home and let me go to my shop). If you have a Bentley, it should describe how to do it.

Glad I could help It really freaked me out when it happened. My poor dad was driving at the time and he thought he did something. Luckily (I guess you could say) my hubby's B4 Passat had its shift linkage fail entirely, leaving him stuck in 2nd gear. So I knew what a linkage failure felt like. Me and my dad had fun in a parking lot trying to figure out what gear(s) I had. And getting it back to their place in the mountains was interesting!

[Opelmania]

Just called my local VW dealer and the part is $47.12 with tax. I'm going to go there and get it and hopefully get a pointer on how it gets replaced. Figures, I just got done with TB/WP, tune up, tstat, and oil change. Oh well. Now I'm going to really be golden.

[Opelmania]

Just got done and all is well thanks to D2Beetle and his DIY for this. Easy as pie to fix and less than $50. Here is the broken part.

[DZLBUG]

Yup, I knew what the problem was before I even clicked on this thread. EVERY 98-99 NB owner should always have a spare one of these around.

My 5 speed swap parts came out of a 99. But I tracked down a shift tower, linkages and shifter from a 00+ and converted it. It is a much better setup.