VW Polo 9N Gear Shift Problems Not Going in Reverse or Not Going in Fifth Gear Fix.
No gears grinding noises is good
No gear grinding noises. This is important because if your car is not going into reverse or first gear or it’s harder to put the car in reverse or first gear combined with gears grinding noises then it’s a problem with the clutch hydraulics or worse a clutch bearing problem. Those are harder to fix than the problem I have today.
My VW Polo 9N Mk4 is not going in reverse gear and worse when you but the gearshift knob in reverse, the car drives forward. It looks like it’s in reverse but it actually goes into first gear.
Step-by-step VW Polo 9N Gear Shift Problems Not Going in Reverse or Not Going in Fifth Gear Fix
This happens because of multiple reasons.
In my case as you see in the series of 6 videos about the gear shift selector problem.
For me the problem is the play In the gear selector knob due to wear in one of the bushings.
In the series I show you how the gear selector and gear shift knob move when you put the car in gear one by one.
Also I show the gear cables or rods adjusters.
At some point I did the adjustment installing a 5mm pin on the gearshift knob and showing the gearbox gear selector locking pin and how to loosen the adjusters and locking the gearbox in neutral for adjustments then locking the gearbox selector cable adjusters, unlocking the gearbox locking pin then finally removing the 5mm rod from the gear stick knob and the adjusting process is complete.
When pulling the selector cable adjusters you should rotate slightly counterclockwise and they will stay in the open position.
At some point I made a mistake trying to pull the adjuster cable before locking the.
When locking the adjusters you rotate the adjuster slightly clockwise and the spring will catch and lock the cable position.
If the springs are not pushing the locking catches far enough, you can help them until the catchers are not visible and they look like before you opened them.
The adjusting for the gearbox selector cable.
Set the Locking pin on the Gearbox Selector Gearshift knob.
5MM Diameter or any Hex key – size like you see in the video.
Loosen the Gear Selector Adjustment Cables Strings Catches.
Gear Selector Press in and
Turn from 12 O’clock to 3 O’clock
Wiggle the Gearbox Selector around neutral position until the locking pin stays in and the selector stays locked.
Turn the locking pin back to 12 O’clock and it should come out a bit – now the gearbox selector is unlocked.
Do not try to change gears while this pin is locking the gearbox – the pin is made of plastic and it can break.
If your gearbox locking pin is broken, you can set the neutral position as you see in the video and the gear shift stick should go in all gears after adjusting.
When setting the gearbox manually into reverse from the engine side it was working so it’s not the actual gearbox but only the adjusters or the bushings or both.
After trying a few times to adjust the gearbox selector, I realized I could make the top adjuster compensate for the work gearshift stick bushing and make it so the gearbox can go in reverse without problems.
At the end the car goes in reverse perfectly even with the worn bushing but it won’t go in fifth gear.
I decided to keep it like this to be sure the car is safe so drive and it would not go forward when in reverse gear.
I already ordered the replacement bushing for the gears selector and will install it later.
I hope this helps someone make their car drive-able again.
Later, I will install the new gear selector bushing and adjust the gearbox selector cables again. Then verify that all gears are ok.
One last tip is when the reverse doesn’t work is the reverse feels harder to engage and it might even pop out and at the same time it’s harder to set the car in second gear. That’s because the first gear, reverse and second gear are on the same height in the engine gearbox selector.
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