Fiat 500 wont get into gear.

[993kimbo]

2013 Fiat 500 manual.

Stuck in heavy traffic yesterday, stick in neutral, went to move off and couldn't get any gear.

Tried for 3 minutes after holding up 100 cars, turned engine off, gears worked and off I went.

Afraid to drive it now.

Any ideas please?

I know there are 100's of threads about gearboxes, pressure plates, clutches etc, but it seems weird that the gears could only be selected after the car was turned off and then back on again.

Many thanks as always for any suggestions.

[Saleen836]

If you can select the gears with the engine off points to it most likely being a clutch problem,there is a fairly common issue with the clutch plates sticking, but it also could be something else

[993kimbo]

Thanks very much.

[Chris32345]

Clutch or clutch slave cylinder both are equally likely they have a week point where the slave cylinder pipe joins to the master cylinder pipework a so called quick connector often fails

[993kimbo]

Cheers, thanks.

[David LLeeds]

This wants further investigation as a possible design flaw. .My dear Mum had exactly same problem with Ford Ka 2013. Complete loss of drive in heavy traffic stop. Main dealer said it was abuse and replaced clutch -4times, in 27k miles! On one of the clutches it happened while I was driving. I forgot about it until the dear lady passed away and her granddaughter inherited the Ka. On taking it to MOT the same thing happened in heavy traffic. In 55 years as driver/mechanic I seen many duff gearchanges and clutches and it's neither. I believe the fault lies with stop/start. Did anyone solve?

[David LLeeds]

No theories about clutch fingers , fluid, sticking gear linkages etc. please. None of those are faulty. Has someone experienced, diagnosed and fixed this annoying intermittent fault which only occurs when it is most inconvenient. The car drives off fine from cold. with all transmission components operating perfectly, but when this problem occurs it can only be righted by turning off the engine and starting again from scratch. As the original poster described.

[adrienne500]

I appreciate the OP is quite old however I've had exactly the same thing happen to me.

Garage has suggested I change the slave and clutch cylinders.

Like the previous post I suspect this issue is connected to the Stop/Start, maybe holding the car on the clutch (old school style) with the stop/start not switched off/deactivated? although I've been driving this way for years and never had the gear selection freeze.

Did anyone get to the bottom of the issue.