98 Beetle drives FORWARD in reverse

[Carmen SanDiego]

I have a 98 Beetle 2.0 manual transmission 75k miles. Drove fine to work yesterday, but when I tried to leave, I couldn't back up, when put car in reverse it drives FORWARD. No grinding, no popping, sounds/feels like it went right into reverse gear, but won't go backwards.

Any ideas? Thank you VERY much in advance for any help!

[Carmen SanDiego]

Found this message in another forum (and it worked) -- thought I'd post it in case anyone else has this problem

"mine did this a month or two ago. There's a plastic linkage that connects the shift cable to the top of the tranny. The part was like ~$30 and took about 30 min to fix. Basically you take out the airbox and you'll see the cables. There will also be a golf club head shaped weight that you can move around and shift the tranny. Anyways, put the parking brake on, put the gear selector in neutral, then use the weight in the engine bay to put the car in neutral. Remove the plastic linkage piece and replace it. Connect it all back up and try it out. Not much to it really. Hope this helps....Oh yeah, if you get a Bentley manual, it show's how the linkage all fits together."

For once I'm happy it was a cheap plastic part that broke!!

[Franco2112]

Carmen,
You are commended for relaying your fix to the rest of us. Most ask for help but never reply the fix. Thanks again. Franco