Gear box frozen?

treeman

treeman

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Is it possible?

Got a call from Mrs Treeman this morning saying she couldn't get the car in reverse, the gear stick would only go into 1st. So I trundled back home (good excuse for a cuppa and a warm up) only to get in the car after it had been running for ten mins, and went into gear no probs. It did say -7 on the thermometer, so would that be enough to freeze the oil? :shrug:
 
Thought I'd phone the local garage that does my servicing, and apparently they've had few similar calls today, all about Peugeots too. Must have been cold last night :cool:
 
Is it possible that the clutch cable was cold enough to contract/shorten? Making it hard for the clutch to open enough to change gear..

Edit: Hmm just rethinking that - not sure it logically makes sense.. Shorter cable would make it easier to change gear would it not?

James
 
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If the oil was frozen why did it go into first?

Some cars can be a bit funny to get into reverse, maybe the cold just made it worse. The Corsa can be a pain to get in sometimes, although going via first helps.

As an aside I don't think the oil will freeze until -20 ish (depending on weight). When I went on a skiing holiday to Canada they had sockets at parking spaces to plug your car into overnight to stop the oil freezing. That was usually about -10 during the day.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_freezing_temperature_of_mineral_oil

Is the freezing point of a mineral oil, however gearox oil is probably around a similar area.
 
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It depends on the grade of oil, but it will be in the range minus 20°C to minus 30°C.
 
Ford's MTX-75 gearboxes are notoriously sticky when very cold (below freezing) - I dare say a few other manufacturer's gearboxes are the same.
Just let it warm up for 15 minutes and I'm sure it'll be fine
 
I was under the impression that most cars had dry gearboxes?
 
Syx said:
I was under the impression that most cars had dry gearboxes?
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Not by design, although I dare say that there are quite a few that have never been checked and so are not as wet as they should be!
 
Syx said:
I was under the impression that most cars had dry gearboxes?
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Um, nope. Transmission oil tends to be a lot thicker than engine oil, you have massive teeth grinding together all the time to smash it up.
 
We have the same probs with our 04 Mondeo, when it gets really cold -2 ish, its a struggle to get reverse.
 
My Volvo has no problems :lol:
 
It bottomed out at -6 here in W Sussex last night, and a bottle of fizzy drink inside my car froze.
 
MisterE said:
It bottomed out at -6 here in W Sussex last night, and a bottle of fizzy drink inside my car froze.
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I had to scrape ice off the inside of my windscreen yesterday morning :lol:
 
Think you'll find it's usually the gear selector that freezes not the gearbox itself
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Thinking about it, maybe that's what the guy in the garage said. I was just so pleased to hear that my "nearly there" D3s fund, wasn't about to have a large hole blown in it!
 
neil_g said:
should be doing that anyway in this weather anyway in my opinion.. just to get all the engine oil warmed up. although you could argue that you should do that any time of the year too..
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You could argue that, but it is complete unnecessary to warm your car up in that fashion, and is equally bad for other components to do so.
You'll find nearly all (last time I looked) manufactures recommend driving at reduced revs until engine reaches normal running temp. :geek:
 
treeman said:
Thinking about it, maybe that's what the guy in the garage said. I was just so pleased to hear that my "nearly there" D3s fund, wasn't about to have a large hole blown in it!
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Having owned numerous Peugeots that all suffered with the same thing, I think you'll find there's a 99% chance of it being this.
 
My Saab did this before I renewed the transmission fluid.

The BMW likes to have a couple of minutes warming up before gear changes are as smooth as i like. Not getting frozen on the inside though, although parking it next to the central heating flue might help with that.
 
My old discovery was the same - As soon as it got a bit chilly, you had to use a bit of force to mash it into first and second until the box warmed up. Couldn't have been the transmission fluid though as that was always nice and liquid on the drive whatever the weather ;-)
 
MisterE said:
It bottomed out at -6 here in W Sussex last night, and a bottle of fizzy drink inside my car froze.
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When I went to top up my washers from the container of readymix screenwash in the car I found the container was full of ice!
 
Hi,

my thoughts would be that a build up of snow on the gear linkage underneath was frozen solid and then fell off once you were sitting ticking over and the exhaust had warmed the underneath of the car a bit, that combined with you trying to engage the gears would have helped it along a bit, I bet if you had looked under the car you would have seem some lumps of snow lying under the linkage :thumbs:

Mike.
 
Nod said:
Not by design, although I dare say that there are quite a few that have never been checked and so are not as wet as they should be!
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onomatopoeia said:
Um, nope. Transmission oil tends to be a lot thicker than engine oil, you have massive teeth grinding together all the time to smash it up.
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Apologies - I was thinking of the clutch rather than the gearbox. :bonk:
 
mikeyb said:
Hi,

my thoughts would be that a build up of snow on the gear linkage underneath was frozen solid and then fell off once you were sitting ticking over and the exhaust had warmed the underneath of the car a bit, that combined with you trying to engage the gears would have helped it along a bit, I bet if you had looked under the car you would have seem some lumps of snow lying under the linkage :thumbs:

Mike.
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Well done Mike, and nobody had thought of that before . . . :thinking::thinking:
 
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