no gears - help!

[Digital_kid]

Hi this is regarding an 04 astra 1.6 I know I am in the Vectra forum but you guys know alot if you can advise,

The car sometimes works ok no problems but then sometimes the car wont go in gear then it will drive a bit and then crunch bang it jumps out of gear. Also when we try to reverse the gear locks like we have a brick under our rear tyre the car wont reverse.

Tell you what else is weird I was in neutral and the car was driving as well? Then I leave it for a bit and try to rock the car then it works ok?

Any ideas the car has only done 20000 miles which is strange.

[plasma]

sounds like the box is collapsing to be honest, if it was just the clutch then neutral would still be ok. Had this on an old vectra i had once same type of symptons

[DennisTheMenace]

Mine i can select reverse and i still go forward , also crunches going into 4th sometimes . must get it looked at one day .

[GARY3306]

Yea it does sound like some selector problems are materialising there, whether internally or externally.

[Digital_kid]

Oh Flip her uncle came aroung (works for Vauxhall as a mechanic) and he has said the gearbox has fell apart! He recons we will be looking at around the £1000 mark.

Worst thing is the car ran out of warranty 7 days ago now where do I stand with this surely an 04 car thats only done 20,000 miles should have a problem like this.

Do you think they would do this under warranty?

[plasma]

Best you can hope for is a Vx contribution... If you get on well with your dealers get them to lay it on thick with Vx customer support. And a gearbox falling apart after 20k i've not heard of before... That in itself should stand you in a few points with your issue

[Caterman]

A call to Vx customer services i think m8. With such a low mileage they may replace as a gesture of goodwill. You'll never know unless you ask

[Digital_kid]

Ok I'll keep you updated as this may come in handy for someone else in the future...

AA Man came last night and collected the car (Vauxhall cover you with the AA Automatically for first 3 years!) and towed it over to the Garage. He had a listen to it and he said the same thing as the uncle. Sounds like the diff has gone. It is intermittant though so hopefully saveable.

Spoke to the dealer this morning they told me it would be £86 just to look at the car and then they could put a claim in for parts with Customer Care.

He wouldnt commit himself (which I can understand) until they have until they have found the problem.

So I am going to wait until they phone but if they tell me it is not fixable under warranty I will ring customer care and give them down the banks!

[Digital_kid]

Ok Update....

It went to Vauxhall got the AA to pick it up and left it there. I phoned them in the morning and explained the problem.

Got some wannabe who didnt want to commit but liked to talk to us like we were stupid!

So anyway, I phoned Vauxhall care in advance and explained the problem again they couldnt commit but they did give us a ref number.

Passed this to the garage and left it there (8 days out of warranty). Had a call few days later the workshop lads had drove it no problems at all! Then the workshop manager took it out and got stuck in the middle of the road and couldnt get it back to the workshop. This pretty much confirmed it was intermittant which looked good on our part.

So away he went to approach Customer care, he did say it wasnt right and a newish car should not do this. Bang Customer care came back authorised all the work free and few days after that a brand new gearbox in a wrapper arrived.

Their fitting it all now so just waiting to pick it up. If the call initially to Customer care helped in advance I have no idea but anyways new gearbox will do for me

[ditchp]

result what a top job mate well done to you, and congrats to vx for doing it freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee