2002 Volkswagen GTI won't go into gear when car is on.

LOUIEBONITTO

MEMBER
2002 VOLKSWAGEN GTI
4 CYL
FWD
MANUAL
87,000 MILES

I went to drive my car to work this morning, I started it up and it wouldnt go into gear. When its off it will shift, but when its running it won't go into any gear except reverse and it makes a bad grinding noise. I've never had a problem with my clutch before.

3 Replies

DUBTECH

MECHANIC
159 POSTS

If all the gears engage when it's not running then I could only assume the linkage is fine.

It could be that the clutch is worn out or the hydraulic system that operates it is bad.

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Monday, August 24th, 2009 AT 10:33 PM

LOUIEBONITTO

MEMBER
2 POSTS

The clutch is less than a year old and their was no problems we could find. So we gave in and brought it to the vw dealerships. Turns out the clutch got wet and stuck to the flywheel.

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Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 AT 10:08 PM

GUTDEUTSCH

MEMBER
1 POST

I had the identical problem with my 2002 GTI manual trans. While the engine was running it was not possible to shift out of neutral, Turn off the engine and shifting worked fine. Well there was flooding in my area the night before and I had to drive through some deep water.
This post really helped me identify my problem. Unfortunately there was no suggested fix.
In my case, the next evening I let the engine idle to warm up and then pushed in the clutch and revved the engine a few times, Fixed-shifting back to normal.
Even my local VW mechanic was not aware of this
.
I'll think twice before driving through deep water again!

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Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014 AT 6:21 PM