Why does my BMW keep jumping out of gear?
Dear Alex,
I have a 1997 BMW 523i with 140,000 miles, used only for long journeys. Over the past few years, first gear has occasionally been thrown back into neutral when starting off, but now this is becoming more frequent. A BMW specialist cannot ascertain the problem as it is intermittent. Any ideas?
– AB
Dear AB,
You don’t mention whether your car is a manual or an automatic, but it sounds very much as though it’s the former, as this is a problem that afflicts not only the E39-generation BMW 5 Series such as yours but also pretty much every manual BMW for a couple of decades.
There are a few potential causes: firstly, the bushings in the linkage can wear and ovalise in time. This leads to the gear lever failing to engage properly in its gate. So you select first gear, pull away and it pops out. If the feeling of engagement through the lever isn’t quite as positive as it used to be, I’d suggest that’s probably the cause.
The other potential failure point, which can again crop up with higher-mileage examples such as yours, is a failing gearbox mounting – but potentially an engine mount, too. If a mount no longer holds the engine or gearbox in place properly, allowing it to move under the torque load, under sudden acceleration this movement can be so significant as to nudge the gear lever out of its gate, back into the neutral position.
Either fault should be relatively easy to fix; a good mechanic should be able to diagnose them fairly easily if they inspect the mounts and the gear linkage.
If neither of these is at fault, it could be that the synchromesh between first and second is wearing out – this is less common and more expensive to sort as it entails a gearbox rebuild. Your best bet is to rule out the other potential causes first before going down this road.
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