If you have any questions you need to speak to "bbspolo" on uk-polos :p I'd hope the price is within a bracket of £400-£1000

What do you mean by seriously exactly?

I think the price is one reason for Jez's comment... Properly hardcore gearboxes tend to start at upwards of £5k. What's the guy proposing to do? Do you all fully understand the failures and what's causing them?

The GTI 'boxes are pretty much identical to the earlier Polo ones, with the exception of a cable change linkage (if memory serves) and larger diff pinion gears on some of them. Whether it's the different diff arrangement that causes some of the issues I don't know - VW obviously thought there was a weakness there that needed addressing.

Personally I'd start by running a poll amongst 6N/6N2 owners to see what bits of their 'boxes have been breaking, and then evaluate the results. What oil have they run in the 'box? Has it ever been off the car (i.e. could it've lost some oil, or incurred other damage?). What kind of driving do they do? What power/torque is their car? What suspension height are they running? What wheels are they using? Have they ever crashed the car?

5th gear failure is fairly common on higher powered G40s - but is also caused by running low on gearbox oil, and not unheard of on any Polo with an 085-series 'box. If you've had a 5th gear set die and the 'box doesn't have the correct fill of oil in it, don't blame the gearbox design. I very much doubt there are more than a couple of Polo GTIs putting out enough torque to damage 5th gear like the G40s do, so wouldn't worry too much there.

BTW - the diff bearings most definately aren't plastic on the older 085 'boxes, and I'll bet that they aren't on the newer ones either. It's great that there's someone out there willing to help. But first clearly identify the problem, then fix it. Otherwise you're just pissing in the wind.

Good post, I'll stick it in the Uk-Polos thread. I think us GTI owners are just looking for are gearbox that can take the power with no problems at all, nothing hardcore costing 5k

A place in cobridge in stoke called volksmine use a company to recondition your existing gearbox so that its problem free forever so they say. They replace aluminium rivets which apparently are the weak point with stainless steel bolts, i was assured that it could take alot more power with no problem!! Price was £650!

Have you used them? If so is the gearbox behaving itself?

I got recommended from a friend who works at a garage, he told me he had one in and after it was reconditioned it was spot on, but no first hand experience yet! Ill let you know within 2 weeks, its booked in monday!

Good good. I know Stoke is like 400 miles away but would make the roadtrip if I was guaranteed a failure free* box

*of course everything mechanical wears out eventually

Well yea i know that, you know what i meant! lol

I got my gearbox and clutch fitted today and all appears very well !! I didnt go with volksmine in the end, a friend of mine at a local garage rang up www.blackdiamond-ltd.co.uk and found me a much cheaper box reconditioned to the same standard with the stainless steel bolts. £520 for the box, and they deliver it and even pick your old one up for you!

This definitely needs more investigation and feedback from GTi owners who have had a gearbox fail on them. As Andy said we need to know exactly what is failing and compare the different driving styles and maintainence levels of the car. It'd also be interesting to compare the internals of a GTi 'box to the internals of the G40 'box to see what the differences are. I can't believe that a 'box with the same internals as the G40 would fail with the power/torque that a GTi puts out (even the ones that are putting out more than standard).

There's a GTi on here that has done over 80k on the original box and isn't showing any signs of failing yet, it's been extremely well maintained so maybe that has something to do with it.

I wonder what the exact differences are which the G40/GTI box. Since they are based on a similar design, there can't be much different. G40's seem to be able to handle even 160bhp with no problems, where 125bhp is even too much for the GTI gearbox.

Mine has started whining very very lightly :(

my G40 box is standard running 161bhp, had its first and only rebuild at 120,000 miles due to a broken tooth on a gear somewhere.. its now on 145,000 and no more problems yet..

i can have a word with my gearbox place about the 16v boxes and see what they do when they rebuild them.

Do reyland supply uprated drivers? Having to rebuild a bearbox every 6 months?