Urgent Help / Advice Required...B7 Quattro SE Manual Has Lost Drive To N/S Front Wheel (Just Discovered) & Will Sometimes Not Select 1st Gear

[Steve-B]

Hi, all

Any help, advice, ideas, expert contacts on this issue would be massively appreciated.
Just after xmas I purchased a 2007 2.0 petrol special edition avant with a manual gearbox with 135k on the clock.
I've probably only done around 1500 miles since then, but on at least ten occasions it has absolutely refused to go into 1st gear (when the car is stationary) & I've had to pull away in 2nd, then it'll be fine again.
Now, this is not ideal & quite frustrating but I was kind of hoping that it might be clutch related, as I have no record of it ever having been replaced, despite having an entire folder of history from it's extremely thorough previous owner of 16 years.
Fast forward to today, when I have the front of the car on axle stands (rear wheels on the floor) because I'm stripping the front brakes off for a full rebuild & I put the car into gear to stop the hubs turning. Well, the O/S hub locked up as you would expect, but when I was working on the N/S, the hub was spinning freely. Not good I thought. Put the car back into neutral, started her up & selected 1st & released the clutch, the O/S hub had drive & was spinning as you would expect, but nothing on the N/S. Same with 2nd gear. 3rd Gear it did start to rotate slightly, but I didn't want to give it any throttle for fear of it coming off the axle stands from the rear wheels driving it forward. It was also making a bit of a weird straining noise because it wanted to drive, but had the handbrake on.
So now I'm thinking that something has physically broken inside the gearbox or another part of the drive system that is causing the no drive issue with the N/S front wheel & is also possibly the cause of not being able to select 1st gear sometimes. I have no idea if this is even possible? It would also explain why the car feels weird when going round a round about or turning at slow speeds, because only one front wheel is being driven! Even turning & pulling off the driveway feels odd, which has always baffled me.
Does anybody have more knowledge than me on the gearbox components or if theres anything within the quattro system that could be broken & explain this fault? Perhaps it's a common issue that I don't know about?
Either way, it seems like it needs looking at by a specialist. Can anybody recommend one in the Oxfordshire area?
I'm not sure what more I can add, but happy to supply more info if I can, if required.
Thanks very much

 

[northpole]

The first thing to look at is if the NS front driveshaft is actually in good condition... check both the inner and outer cv joints by removing the boots. If they are oke, then it will be the gearbox itself... in that case, I would look at a used replacement one because a simple swap will be cheaper than a repair. It'll also be a lot faster to get your car working properly again.

 

[Charlie Farley]

Hi, all

Any help, advice, ideas, expert contacts on this issue would be massively appreciated.
Just after xmas I purchased a 2007 2.0 petrol special edition avant with a manual gearbox with 135k on the clock.
I've probably only done around 1500 miles since then, but on at least ten occasions it has absolutely refused to go into 1st gear (when the car is stationary) & I've had to pull away in 2nd, then it'll be fine again.
Now, this is not ideal & quite frustrating but I was kind of hoping that it might be clutch related, as I have no record of it ever having been replaced, despite having an entire folder of history from it's extremely thorough previous owner of 16 years.
Fast forward to today, when I have the front of the car on axle stands (rear wheels on the floor) because I'm stripping the front brakes off for a full rebuild & I put the car into gear to stop the hubs turning. Well, the O/S hub locked up as you would expect, but when I was working on the N/S, the hub was spinning freely. Not good I thought. Put the car back into neutral, started her up & selected 1st & released the clutch, the O/S hub had drive & was spinning as you would expect, but nothing on the N/S. Same with 2nd gear. 3rd Gear it did start to rotate slightly, but I didn't want to give it any throttle for fear of it coming off the axle stands from the rear wheels driving it forward. It was also making a bit of a weird straining noise because it wanted to drive, but had the handbrake on.
So now I'm thinking that something has physically broken inside the gearbox or another part of the drive system that is causing the no drive issue with the N/S front wheel & is also possibly the cause of not being able to select 1st gear sometimes. I have no idea if this is even possible? It would also explain why the car feels weird when going round a round about or turning at slow speeds, because only one front wheel is being driven! Even turning & pulling off the driveway feels odd, which has always baffled me.
Does anybody have more knowledge than me on the gearbox components or if theres anything within the quattro system that could be broken & explain this fault? Perhaps it's a common issue that I don't know about?
Either way, it seems like it needs looking at by a specialist. Can anybody recommend one in the Oxfordshire area?
I'm not sure what more I can add, but happy to supply more info if I can, if required.
Thanks very much

Just a heads up , with the quattro B7's , if you loose drive to one wheel , you will loose drive to all four, thats the nature of the quattro setup on the B7 , so if you have cv joint issues for example to the front nearside which cuases the axle to become detcahed from the hub then all drive to all wheels will be lost .

 

[Steve-B]

Thanks for the replies,
As far as I can tell, It's definitely not a drive shaft issue. I'm pretty sure it's something internal, but the loss of drive to only one wheel seems odd.

 

[Charlie Farley]

Given the drive to each wheel is controlled by the axle differential, if you are having a specific issue on just one side it may be worth looking in the diff area.

 

[northpole]

yes and that will cost you if you can't diy in that case just getting a good 2nd hand gearbox (same gearbox code) will be cheaper and will get you on the road faster than trying to have the old one fixed, especially if it's your only mode of transportation. but yeah it sounds like your differantial is acting up. If it was my car i'd be looking at getting a replacement gearbox asap... loads of quattro B7 BUL's ae being broken at the moment so you should be able to find one at a decent price.