signs of a dying tranny?

tonight i was driving around and had no problems with shifting, every gear seemed to be working fine. i park the car and then my mom asks me to go off, i had my dad drive and explain what i had done wrong while driving earlier. he shifts 1,2,3 fine and then gets to forth and its liek being in neutral. the rpm's go up, but no movement, no acceleration. 5th works fine too. is this a dying tranny? i've had the car for a week (has 120,000 miles) and has worked fine until tonite. can anyone help me out with some clues to what's going on? thanks

Have someone watch the linkage while shifting to each gear to be sure the problem isn't there.

i had to have my car taken to the local VW dealer, and wow, what an unpleasant event, first they ran diagnostics for my check engine light, turns out my catalytic converter is bad ($1000 to replace that...) then they got into the tranny, turns out the whole thing is bad, had to pay the man 250$ just to open the case, thank god for warranties through ebay. from this experience with VW i dont think i will ever buy another, the tranny is going to cost $2200 installed, plus all the other expenditures i have on my bill already, i thought VW was supposed to be soo reliable and i am very disappointed, so much for a good first car :-/

All vw cats go bad arround 80,000 miles. And vw transmissions are good transmissions, its just that they dont reccomend flushing the fluid so people like you will need a new trans at 100,000miles. (hence the "lifetime" fluid in the transmission)

I do know that a faulty throttle body can cause the transmission to shift improperly.
Also faulty transmission speed sensors can cause improper shifting also.
If a vehicle speed sensor on transmision is faulty there will not be 4th gear, it wont shift to 4th gear.

now if the speed sensor in the transmission is bad and it wont let me shift ino 4th, would it let me shift up to fifth at all? when i was driving it without 4th i just accelerated alot in 3rd adn shifted into 5th no problems

There is no 5th gear unless its a 02+ triptronic or 03+ auto

its stick veedub. sorry for not posting that.