I have a 99.5 A4 1.8t quattro

I parked it the other day and everything was fine, after a really cold night I went to drive it and couldn't get it into 1st without it grinding like crazy then popping into gear, same with 2nd.

After a little driving 1st is almost impossible to get into so I had to drive it with only 2nd still with the grinding and popping in. 3rd works but feels like it never fully engages. It goes into any gear fine when the key is in the on position but engine is off.

4th,5th and reverse are all fine. I was able to drive it home from north jersey to south jersey.

Any thoughts before I start pulling stuff apart? Thanks guys.

 

Maybe your synchro is jacked.

 

You have to give the tranny fluid time to warm up before it can shift. If you have forced it into gears, you could have harmed the gears.

 

^ You should also try that too. Try letting the car warm up first. The tranny in my dad's old work Bronco used to freeze up in the winter fairly often. Just to clarify, manual, right?

 

yea manual. They might have been true the first time, but like I said I drove all the way back to south jersey and tho I made it, it still wouldn't shift into those gears. whats this hammerd the gears thing?

 

I said harmed the gears, not hammered. If you forced it to shift you could have damaged the syncros or gears. That would make shifting into gear very difficult

 

Check/replace your fluid as a precaution. Usually if you rev it up some while trying to put it ino a low gear like 1st it'll go in more easily in cold weather, and more safely. You could have some mangled synchros though like said.

 

try double clutching while rev matching and see if that helps. If it shifts smooth, then it sounds like a synchro issue.

 

^^thats what i do. if i cant allow proper warm up time then i doule clutch into second cause thats the only gear that wont go in good. double clutching usually works great for me, but like i said thats only if i have to drive it without proper warmup. the last couple of days up here we havent gotten past 0 degrees for a high so i usually start my car then take a shower and head off. first block or two is a little rough but the tranny loosens up after that