Hey everyone,

I feel like I'm the only person in the world with this issue—honestly, I haven't found anyone else online mentioning it.

I drive a 2011 Ford Fiesta with the IB5 gearbox, and sometimes it’s hard to pull out of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gear, only when car is moving. There’s no issue putting it into gear—never had a problem with that. And 4th and 5th work perfectly fine, too.

What I should look into?

I imagine you have checked fluid..master/slave cylinders

Does it happen all the time or only after a certain time

Is it possible to get out of gear if you turn off the ignition. 

If the last one is yes then sounds like the clutch to me

Hi Danny, thanks for your reply.

It's stuck in gear for like 1-2 seconds, I have to pull it hard. All while driving.

It happens mostly while accelerating or decelerating. Both with car hot or cold.

About cylinders - I've tried to hold clutch while standing still and pushing accelerator pedal. No moving occured.

Have you checked the fluid level and have you ever changed the fluid.

Think it should be changed every 2-3 years as they will get water in the system

Brake fluid level is fine, but I'm not sure that brake fluid is fine (brakes share hydraulic fluid with transmission).

I don't own a device to measure it. I believe its at least old as a car, will check papers tommorow.

Thanks for the tip. What can bad hydraulic  flud cause exactly?

 

Do you think low transmission oil can cause this sort of problem? Can bad synchros cause hard pulling out of a gear?

Water in the fluid will compress that will make it hard to change gear. 

My parents had exactly the same fault and it turned out to be the clutch

Was expensive for them so let's hope not

Fluids can't be compressed.  Basic physics principle.  

The problem with water in brake fluid is that it boils when heated which turns it into a gas instead.  Those gas bubbles can be compressed.

Just proves that I learnt approximately jack at school or I was ill that day

That should affect brakes but not transmission I believe.

Important correction: after shifter is stuck for like 1-2 seconds, NOT MUCH force is required to ger it out of gear. 

 

I have this problem since I bought a car in 2021.

Just now, forddrof said:

That should affect brakes but not transmission I believe.

Important correction: after shifter is stuck for like 1-2 seconds, NOT MUCH force is required to ger it out of gear. 

Brakes and clutch share the same fluid from the same reservoir.

Hey TomsFocus,

Yes, that is correct, but still, if brakes boil off and make bubbles, are they permanent or they bleed out by themselves?

I believe this is something else.

10 hours ago, forddrof said:

Hey TomsFocus,

Yes, that is correct, but still, if brakes boil off and make bubbles, are they permanent or they bleed out by themselves?

I believe this is something else.

The bubbles stay in the system permanently until that section of fluid is manually flushed out by a technician.  That is why brake fluid is recommended to be replaced every 2 years.

However, the clutch cylinder shouldn't get as hot as brakes, so you shouldn't end up with boiling fluid in the clutch line.  If it turns out to be fixed by bleeding the clutch line then I would be more inclined to expect a very small leak in the slave cylinder instead.  That allows a tiny bit of fluid out and therefore a tiny bit of air in.

I don't know exactly what the fault is in this case.  It seems very unusual.  If it was just one gear, or two gears on the same hub, I would blame the gearbox.  If it was many gears but both in and out then I would blame the clutch.  The problem you have doesn't really make sense from a mechanical point of view.  Bleeding the clutch line is the cheapest and easiest thing to try first though.  You could also try resetting the gear selector cable, by unlocking the gearbox end, then selecting 4th gear to adjust the cable length, then locking that length in position again.  You could also check the gear oil is up to the level of the filler plug.  But that doesn't burn, so if you can't see a visible leak from the driveshaft seals or from between the gearbox and engine, then it is unlikely for the level to have dropped.

@TomsFocus

Big thanks for extensive answer!

Actually I have this problem since 2021, did transmission oil change than at official repair center but problem persisted. I do have engine oil leak somewhere around oil pan, on the transmission side. See attachment.

Do You think that problem would manifest  while car is stationary, if cables were the problem? ***** thing happens only while car is moving.

 

 

I wouldn't expect a cable problem to disappear when stationary.  But those symptoms don't fit any other diagnosis either.  So I would be trying the cheap and easy things anyway.

I am now wondering whether someone has rebuilt the gearbox before you bought the car, perhaps using non-Ford parts that weren't quite up to spec.

 

We had a similar problem on the wifes ST-Line.  No loss of fluid but the Clutch master cylender was found to be leaking internally, this resulted in a reduced movement of the cluth.  One this was changed the issue went away.

Thanks TomsFocus, thanks miffy.

I will try replacing fluid, bleeding it, and replacing master clutch. Thats not expensive.

@miffy

Have you noticed anything strange with the clutch, how did you come with that its the master cylinder? Did it affect every gear?

It just got harder to get into and out of gear.  Once she showed me the issue I had the cylinder replaced.  I didnt do any real testing further than confirming that the clutch appeared to not be fully releasing

Hi forddrof,

You aren't alone! What you describe sounds very similar to what we experience, and we have been similarly unable to diagnose it.

One thing I've noticed: normally there's a little bit of free travel in the clutch pedal before it feels like you're actually operating anything - it feels like about 1cm. When the can't-get-out-of-gear problem occurs, this free travel is greatly increased; it feels like the clutch pedal isn't attached to anything except a light return spring somewhere. If I keep very gently dabbing the pedal, I can feel the distance of free travel decreasing until it's back to normal after a few seconds, and then if I press the clutch again I can get out of gear. So what seems to work for us when the problem happens is to release the clutch pedal, wait a few seconds, then depress the pedal again.

What puzzles me is that the behaviour of the pedal feels like the clutch mechanism gets stuck in the clutch-disengaged (pedal down) state. But if that was the case, it shouldn't be a problem getting out of gear - the problem ought to be restoring the drive from the engine once you're in the new gear. So might it be that the first depression of the clutch pedal fails to disengage the clutch somehow?

We can't spot any pattern in when the problem occurs - engine hot/cold, time since last change of gear, hot/cold/wet weather, nothing seems to predict it.

The problem happens often enough to be a nuisance (and sometimes alarming in busy traffic) but not often enough to be able to demonstrate it to a garage 😞

 

@Baffled

Hey, thats right, its really hard to pick up any pattern. I've been four times before at mechanic and noone of them could replicate the problem.

Sometimes holding clutch for two seconds enables me to get it out of a gear, sometimes pressing clutch pedal again, sometimes just putting slight preasure on gearstick. Sometimes it doesn't occur for a week. It drives me nuts.

I'm waiting for an appointment at mechanic shop at the moment.

P.S. Getting it unstuck only sometimes affects RPM needle (e.g. 1400 -> 800 drop) , but not every time!