How to Get Your Car's Stuck Shifter Unstuck

Let me quell your fears: This problem is not the end of the world ... probably. Your Passat could have a couple of things going on, though. The shifter in your car is not rigidly connected to the transmission. Like most front-wheel-drive cars, it uses push?pull cables to snake around to the front of the car and control the transverse-mounted transmission. A tube around the two cables protects them from binding and allows each to be cleanly clamped to the body of the car. At the factory the cables and shift mechanism are lubricated, but over time that lubricant breaks down or can become contaminated and will actually make shifting a bit more difficult. This effect is amplified in cold weather, when the viscosity of the lubricant goes way up, making things stickier.

The cheap but labor-intensive fix is to take apart the center console and extract the cables, hang them up on a wall, and spray some penetrating fluid down the insides, followed by a shot of brake cleaner and then white lithium grease. Clean and lube the shift mechanism in a similar manner. The easier but more expensive alternative would be to buy and install shift cables and clean just the shifter.

There are two other possible root causes of sticky shifting, and I'll list them in order of escalating expense. On one hand, the transmission fluid could be breaking down, especially if you're driving the car hard and have never changed the fluid. Alternatively, your synchronizers may be getting worn. These are responsible for aligning the gears to the shafts and making the shifting process smoother. Worn synchros in cold weather make shifting trickier. If this is the case, you'll find shifting gets more and more difficult over time, even in warm months. You could live with it, spend a thousand bucks or more on a transmission rebuild, or put money toward a new car.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/repair/how-to-get-your-cars-stuck-shifter-unstuck-14886230?src=rss

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