Hi, not used the forum in a while but glad to see it is still going strong!

My girlfriend has a 55 plate Punto Active, I sold my car so needed to use it yesterday. This is the first time I have used it in a year or so.

The gearbox felt very odd, I could only describe it as a stick in a bucket of mud! The gear lever no longer centralised itself, the movement of it was very stiff and each gear did not feel very defined at all. The other thing that was strange is that you no longer need to lift the shaft up to get it in reverse.

I drove a 1.2 Punto daily afew years back and the gearbox was certainly not like this. My girlfriends claims she has simply not noticed it getting like this and if it is has been a gradual thing and know ing my girlfriend this is probably true.

There are no clunks or noises coming from the gearbox but there is definately something wrong with it. Anyone else had a similar experience, is this a common issue? She has had it from new, doesn't drive it hard at all (generally sees 50mpg) and it has covered 48k.

Thanks in advance.

The gear lever unit has two cables going to it, IIRC. It is possible these have become corroded.

Out of interest, how many miles has the car done? Any idea how long since the last gearbox oil change?

something sounds broken in the bottom of the stick lever because there is a plastic bit that locks it into reverse