Getting harder and harder to manually stick shift into 1st gear

Apologies in advance if a similar thread exists, I wasn't able to find one but may have missed it.
Within the last few weeks the car is giving me a hard time when shifting into 1st gear at a stand still. With a little finesse it'll go but it takes a while to find 1st, I'm having to shift into almost all the other gears (while the car is stopped and the clutch engaged) in order to finally find 1st gear. Almost like the path to 1st gear has narrowed considerably. At times it seems like it engages but when I release the clutch to go I find I'm actually in 3rd. Anyone else experience this?
All other gears are working fine.
About the car: 2010 TDI Sportwagen 6-speed manual, currently about 144K miles. Bought it used from a dealer in Santa Cruz in 2013, had about 50K miles when I bought it. So far it's been my most reliable vehicle, I love this car.

search for "dieselgeek shifter adjustment" for a video and instructions on adjusting the shift cables.

I had the same symptoms and it was the result of a tiny white plastic piece that popped off its ball socket in the linkage. I ended up installing an all metal dieselgeek sigma6 shortshift kit rather than replace the plastic junk.

@turbobrick240: Thanks for the suggestion. I just pulled up the 29 page install guide for the Sigma 6 Shifter. I'll be honest, I'm a little intimidated. How long did that install process take you? I'm an average Joe when it comes to tinkering with cars, definitely not pro.

IIRC it took me about 15-20 minutes to get the plumbing out of the way the first time. Probably a lot less the second time. Installing the Sigma 6 shifter probably 45 minutes then I spent a long time aligning BUT that was because I didn’t have the right nail to go in the alignment hole. I was trying to use a allan key that was close to tight but eventually gave up and went to the hardware store. Maybe 5 minutes to align with the right nail in the hole, then maybe 15 to reinstall the plumbing. If you are just re aligning the stock linkage I would guess about an hour for the whole job. A mechanic would probably take 20 minutes max. BTW when it wasn’t aligned right I had the problem you are describing. Had to pull really hard to left to get 1st.

I’d wonder why the alignment went out though. It’s reasonably rugged and shouldn’t really wear much. Any chance of foreign object damage?

I had the same problem long time ago on a rabbit. used to shift to second gear first and then, without stopping, shifting it to first. try if it works that way...

Strong Malt said:

@turbobrick240: Thanks for the suggestion. I just pulled up the 29 page install guide for the Sigma 6 Shifter. I'll be honest, I'm a little intimidated. How long did that install process take you? I'm an average Joe when it comes to tinkering with cars, definitely not pro.

Click to expand...

I was on a road trip to Austin when my clutch started slipping pretty badly (modified car), so I took it to runonbeer's shop. He discovered the missing plastic piece and installed the sigma six along with a new clutch. I assume it was a cakewalk for him- he didn't even charge labor on it.

Has your clutch feel changed at all? Just to cover all of your bases, look under the car at the base of the transmission. Check to see if there is any liquid dripping down. If so, that might be clutch fluid.

I had the same symptoms right before my slave cylinder went.

icrashcars said:

Has your clutch feel changed at all? Just to cover all of your bases, look under the car at the base of the transmission. Check to see if there is any liquid dripping down. If so, that might be clutch fluid.

I had the same symptoms right before my slave cylinder went.

Click to expand...

Clutch seems to be operating normally, no change there. I'll check under the car and inspect. Is clutch fluid normally replenished by the vehicle owner? I can't recall ever replacing or topping off clutch fluid with any of my previous manual transmission cars...