Shift tower gasket broken?

I attached two photos of the shift tower gasket. How important is this gasket? With the gasket in this condition, if I maybe... Perhaps... Might have taken a pressure washer to the tranny, could this cause any issues?

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That seal is replaceable fairly easily. The bearing is a little more of a pain but doable. Not very expensive. When I picked up my 03, that seal was shot and the shifter was horrible! There was definitely water making it in there.

https://www.idparts.com/shifter-tower-bushing-repair-kit-a4-p-2281.html

The seal serves two purposes. It keeps the transmission oil from migrating up and out of the tower and helps protect the small bearing/ trans internals from outside contaminates.

It’s a pretty simple and cheap repair. If your loosing sleep over it go ahead a change the seal.

As the poster above already mentioned, inspect the condition of that bearing. A rusted/seized bearing adversely affects your shifting performance




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If the tower isnt sloppy (worn bearing) id just pop off the round black plastic cap and fill it full of grease.

94cobra2615 said:

If the tower isnt sloppy (worn bearing) id just pop off the round black plastic cap and fill it full of grease.

Click to expand...

A quick bearing heath check is to push down on counterweight /relay lever ( have it in neutral) and see if it springs back up. If it does,
the bearing is still in good shape

You can always remove the tower body from the transmission and visually inspect it


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