[MarkAndyJ]

The gearstick on my car is quite vague in 1st, 3rd and 5th gear - there is a lot of side to side play in these gears, and when shifting down from say 4th to 1st, the gearstick will always go into 3rd unless I put the stick into neutral, waggle it side to side for a second then push into 1st.

I've looked online and a lot of suggestions are worn bushes however I can't see these are replacable for my car. I assume its either this or maybe a stretched linkage or similar, and wanted to ask if anyones had similar issues and knows if this can be adjusted?

[BrendanP]

if you go to http://www.partsouq.com and search using your VIN, then you can see an exploded drawing of the gear lever assembly. It looks like the guts of the gear lever mechanism is just one part. I had a diesel where the gear shift still worked fine after 296,000 miles. I did take the centre console out to let me see where the cables attach to the gear lever. It would be worth getting someone to move the gearstick about to see if there's any slop or lost motion in the linkages at each end of the cable. I'd be surprised if the cables stretch as there isn't a lot of tension in them.

You can see on partsouq what parts are available but they may not be the parts that are giving you the problem.