Clutch / Gearbox Problem - Confirmation Required Please

[TazzyK]

Hi all,

My brother's Passat (2006 registration 2.0 TDI) is experiencing some gear changing problems. This only started in the last few days since we've had snow and the temperature has barely got above -3. He's just driven it home so it's working (sort of) but he said gears were hard to change and couldn't select reverse. The first symptom though, was that the clutch pedal failed to return only once, but this has since been fine.

I've just been out to check it (about an hour after he got home) and can confirm that with the engine running, you can't select reverse or 1st, but higher gears can be selected with some force. 2nd gear is a bit of hit and miss... you can select it sometimes but mostly not. If you switch the engine off, select 1st, turn the engine on and then drive off, the car does move like it should (or at least it feels like it will drive - it's snowing so I only moved it a few yards up and down the road, doing the same for the reverse gear).

Trawling the net and this forum, I'm hoping this is just transmission oil problem which needs to be changed? I tried bliping the throttle and changing gear but this had no effect, probably due to the car being stationary mostly when I was testing it so I'm assuming the gear oil wasn't warming up much anyway.

Can somebody confirm my diagnosis or shed some further insights? I've been trying to find the post that shows how to change the gear box oil but not had much luck, so if anyone could post the link for that as well I'd appreciate it.