Patrol 5th Gear

Well it just happened to me as well. Driving in 5th along the Bass Highway on Saturday morning, doing exactly 100 with cruise control (according to GPS not speedo which is out about 8% because of larger tyres) and whizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bang, crash!! I instinctively deactivated the cruise control as the engine was now reving at about 20k! rpm and knocked the gear lever back to 4th.

Awfull rattling and grinding sounds started to come out from under the bonnet - like a bearing that has collapsed. 5th gear does not work at all.

I called the dealer this morning and told them that 5th gear had gone and that I was bringing in the Patrol. The guy on the desk said something like - "Oh yeah short machined spline on 5th gear syndrome." Anyway when I got to the dealer and saw the service card made up for me, it said "Noisy 5th gear"!!!! So I said - no 5th gone, dead, no more, deceased, gone to a ...... you know how that sketch goes. So then I thought - these guys are not going to do this under warranty are they. Someone got to the guy on the desk between the time I spoke to him on the phone and when I got there. So when I asked the first response was - is it still under warranty!. I said yes - it was purchased in August 2000 and it has done 86,000k's. Response was - we will have a look at it to see if it is not just WEAR and TEAR!

Here I go again with these guys - reading some of the prior posts on this problem, there were quite a few people who said that their dealer replaced the gearbox with no questions asked under warranty - even in one case when the vehicle was just out of warranty. I hope I don't have a battle comming.

Peter

btw - I do not tow a heavy trailer. I do have a medium caravan that we tow twice a year, but hardly ever in 5th (unless it is a flat road with not much wind). Also I never go into 5th below 80 kph.