FHN problem

[zzdiesel]

A third of the way through an eight hour drive, suddenly, the tranny would not go into 1st gear. It was like it hit a wall when trying. At the same time going into 3rd started making a snick, not going in as smoothly as before. They would seem connected, anybody have any idea why.

I was also towing a trailer with a fridge the second half of the trip. Luckily no hill starts required but I did run a few stop sighns and bright orange lights.
I suppose a tranny pull will be the next step.

 

[d24tdi]

Could be the early stages of the seemingly typical 012 trans failure mode behind a BHW; 3rd gear synchro breakage.

My GGB died that same way on a long trip after many miles in a car that had a SMF and a tune. Others have had the same failure on 3rd gear synchro. Mine shattered completely and gave no synchro functionality in 3rd, unlike yours which sounds like it still is partially there, plus on mine synchro pieces came free and started to float around inside the trans. That would intermittently block access to other gears (usually reverse but sometimes others) and eventually one piece found its way to the diff where it almost locked the trans up on the highway, before blowing a hole through the gearbox case.

Yours might be just starting to let go, maybe cracked and lost a chunk that keeps it from accessing 1st. More problems might be coming but I agree your plan of pulling the trans is probably the way to go. Mine probably would have been repairable without much trouble if I had quit driving it as soon as it went wrong. Once the case got holed and the diff got chewed it was a lost cause, of course. And in hindsight I'm lucky it didn't cause a wreck by locking up the differential, if I could do it differently I would have parked it first sign of trouble and had it towed home.

Worth looking over the linkage too before doing anything else just in case..... but I wouldn't be too optimistic that it will be that easy given what you've described so far.

 

[zzdiesel]

It is not looking easy to find the synchros, on line at least.

 

[Passat'n Adventure]

I also have a FHN that started having problems with third gear. At first I thought it was the linkage jamming, but I did a fluid change and got some of the pieces out of the tranny with the fluid. I had someone with small fingers get to pull some chunks out that I have on my bench. That was a couple of years ago, and I am now having random issues with different gears at random times. I will have issues with 2nd and 5th, for a while it was 4th gear that was a bear to get into gear, but now I cannot get it into reverse. Each issue went away after some time and determination - sometimes with a noticeable clunk or 'release' of resistance. I now regularly chirp gears at certain speeds. I cannot complain too much since I did not change the fluid as much as I should have. I now have 300K miles on this gearbox that had an unknown history when it was installed. I am about to hunt down another FHN and try to get another 300K with fluid changes on a more regular basis.

I had no idea that losing third gear (first) was a common issue with this gear box until this post. Third is the best one for certain situations. I figured that I had a bad unit or a box that had a hard time before I got it.

Update: I was offered a '15 TDI SEL Premium at a good price and brought it home before purchasing. A friend came over to inspect it (does this for a living). He asked about the '05 wagon - I described my current issue with reverse. He got in it and tried to put it through the gears and told me it is a bushing problem. He is going to order a kit for me and help replace them. I will let you know what happens.

 

[zzdiesel]

The 3rd gear synchro did indeed turn into big and small pieces.
Any tips on where and how I might find a replacement. Obviously going by the vin number won;t work.
Apparently this tranny was never sold in North America so unless this part is common to others it might have to come from Europe.

 

[zzdiesel]

Anybody have a method to remove the front imput shaft bearing. VAG tool 1582 plus the adapter is several hundred dollars.