Hey all,

I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum to post on. I will delete if it is.

I have a question regarding my Volvo V50 1.6D from 2010 (manual gearbox). An incident happened where a mechanic forgot to close the oil cap properly after an oil change. As a result all the oil spilled all over the engine during my 9 hour roadtrip. Luckily the red light with the "Oil pressure" message turned just when I entered a rest stop. I topped the oil (ocourse I made sure the oil cap was closed properly this time) and continued my roadtrip to my destination (another 2 hours). No light came up and everything looked fine. I went to a local mechanic for a check up and he confirmed everything is fine and that it was in fact the oil cap that was not closed properly. 2 days later the clutch was not working. No pressure on it. Whenever I pressed on it it was stuck to the back. 2 garages told me the flywheel and clutch needs to be replaced.

I thought that maybe oil slipped in the clutch and that was the cause, but the garages told me it was wear. Anyway after the replacement of the clutch, clutch cable and flywheel everytime the car goes into 2nd gear it makes this grinding noice. When the car is idle or is in very low rpm and I go in to 2nd gear it doesn't grind. I never had this issue before. The garage told me the sync. broke and the whole transmission needs to be replaced. I went again to a second mechanic for a second opinion and he said the same. I though maybe the clutch cable was not adjusted right and that might've been the cause, but the both said that it was not. The shop that replaced the clutch and flywheel also showed me the clutch cable. It was broken and stretched out as if someone pulled super hard on it. They told me that maybe someone forced the car into second gear and thats why the clutch cable looks like this and explains why the gearbox broke, but I never forced anything. The gearbox worked smoothly.

Does someone has any idea or do I really need to replace the transmission?

Thank you for reading!

 

It sure does sound like the second gear synchronizer is bad. The oil spill from your bonehead technician should have nothing to do with any of these problems.

Just to make sure the clutch is adjusted properly, try shifting any gear other than into or out of second gear (3-4, 4-5, 5-4, 4-3), but by pushing the clutch pedal halfway down (instead of to the floor). If those all shift smoothly, but it still grinds going into second gear with the pedal all the way down, it's got to be the 2nd gear sychro, and it's going to require a rebuild or a used transmission.

I'm thinking it's possible that the damage to the synchro happened when the clutch cable broke (maybe due to trying to force the car into our out of gear after the failure).

 

Thanks for your comment!

I will give it a try today. I've read somewhere that when you double clutch and the grinding noise is gone then it is for sure the synchros that are broken, I did try double clutching and the grinding noise was still present. Someone also said that the Slave cylinder seal might be leaking since it is a known issue on these transmissions. But like you mentioned I do believe that the transmission needs to be replaced or revised unfortunately. Though I have no idea who might have forced the car into second gear.

 

It's possible you have a transmission problem, and if so, it's totally a coincidence that you broke the clutch cable. My opinion. I don't really do car-problems-all-related-somebody-did-this-imaginary-thing thinking. The important thing is that you can easily determine that the 2nd gear syncrhos are bad without resulting to some sort of "story". Just let it speak for itself. if the clutch is fully disengaging, a reasonable person could assess that. If so, then the cable does not need adjustment. You can easily tell just by driving it.

The cable just broke because that's what they do. There is no possible way for anybody to do anything to a car, no matter who they are, to put extra stress on that clutch cable. It's simply impossible.

So the synchronizers can certainly wear out, and it may well be that's what happened. I had an 850 which I bought for $450 and the 4th gear synchros were bad. I drove it six years and then gave it to a teenager.

Volvo does make entire transmissions available rebuilt, which is good.