Berlingo Gearbox Problem

hundleton1 · Post by **hundleton1** » 23 Mar 2010, 15:04

hi guys, has any one else experienced a problem with the gearbox on the berlingo? i have had my van from new, 9 months in and something failed on the gearbox that prevented you from getting it out of 5th gear correctly, it would go in fine but instead of pulling back into neutral it would try to enter reverse , after was in the dealer they fitted a new gearbox due to the mechanism falling apart and falling in side, now today the same thing has happened again, this gearbox os only 13 months old and the van is now out of warranty, i have spoken with citroen and they deny any common fault.

any ideas ?

hundleton1 · Post by **hundleton1** » 09 Apr 2010, 21:56

Just to give anyone who may be interested an update, i have had a replacement box fitted today so the van is now good again, due the the linkage setup on the berlingo there is very little that can go wrong, if none of the 4 link rods are loose then any gear change problems are with in the box,

next we stripped the gearbox to see what exsacly has failed, to our supprise we found that a 3mm thick bracket has snapped on one side

this bracket it a wide squared U shape piece of 3mm steel that has a hole through each side ,through this the main gear selector rod goes, then within the U where the rod goes through the main selector spring sits between each side, this is attached to the rod in the centre, this setup keeps the rod in the centre position (centre on the gear leaver) when when you move the gear stick left or right this rod pushes in and out compressing the spring on one side or the other, on mine it has snapped rite on the bend on one side, this meant the spring only had pressure when pushed one way, the other way was completely loose.

i have no idea what would cause this to snap but there is no way this should happen on 20k miles.

Old-Guy · Post by **Old-Guy** » 10 Apr 2010, 10:56

Visual inspection with a strong magnifying glass would probably show a stress fracture caused by the bending process in the first place. With each gearchange that put a load on this side of the bracket, the crack would extend at an increasing rate until failure occurred. Bottom line: a manufacturing defect, perhaps due to a flaw in the steel strip. IMHO more likely to be the result bending through too sharp an angle, so a whole batch of identical gearbox failures is waiting to happen.