Hi. I'm having trouble with my gearbox on my 1.3 multijet active. The gear stick seems to have moved over to the left and is not centralising when going from second to third. I'm struggling to get it into first gear from neutral and having to put it in second first. Second is not always easy to get as im having to shove the gearstick so far over to the left. It seems to get worse towards the end of a journey and on occasions can't get either first or second. Very embarrassing when I have to chug off the lights in third gear!! Any ideas what it might be? Not consistent in how bad it is.

Sounds like something possibly amiss with the selector cables. What you could do yourself simply and quickly is to get an assistant to move the gearstick through all of the gears. Whilst you are looking under the bonnet, watch where the cables attach to the selector arm on the gearbox, and then give all of the moving parts a quick spray of WD40 or similar spray lubricant whilst your assistant is still moving the stick through the gears.

If this doesn't free up the stick and improve things then it'll need to be looked at by someone who's familiar with the cable setup to determine if they need be adjusted / replaced, or if the gearbox needs to be checked. An oil change might help it too.

I'd get this looked into ASAP as driving it like that is very hard on the clutch.

Thanks. I'll give it a go!

Well it seems to have made life a big easier but it's still a bit clunky and not centralising.

I'll have a look at mine later to see if there's anything else that can check be checked, and will report back

As far as I know the centering is done underneath the stick itself, but if anyone knows better then by all means correct me. I don't know about the clonking though. Is it the same whether the engine is running or not?

Yeah, makes no difference whether on or off. A good oil definitely helped and us Just sticky really now, I can always get it in gear but sometimes doesn't really want to go and still not centralising. Gonna have to get someone to have a look me thinks.