Rav4 4.2 - Lost Forward Drive But Still Reverses - Gearbox Dead?

[a62vw]

Hi all,

Just had a problem with my wife's 54 plate RAV4 XT4 manual. Driving up the hill on our road and lost all forward drive. Can hear gears grinding but no forward motion. However, it still seems to reverse, so it's not the clutch. Am I looking at a dead gearbox? Is it a common problem? I know about the 5th gear issue, which we experienced on a Belgian motorway last year in a different RAV4. I'm assuming this is a more catastrophic failure. It's been making increasing noises for the last few weeks which I thought was a blowing exhaust but couldn't see any leaks. I guess it was something to do with this problem!

Appreciate any comments / suggestions!
Thanks,

Vaughn

[a62vw]

OK, got it taken to local gearbox specialist. It's DMF that's broke, so time for a new SMF and clutch kit - £697!

[sich1]

yes its a known issue on the 4.2 and sounds like a bag of spanners being rattled until it fails completely.

shop around. i got a valeo SMF full kit from ECP on offer and got it fitted by my local indie all for £650!!

is your price just for the kit? had this done a year ago and its still going great,very controllable in the rough stuff.

trick i used was to get ECP to match the price of the same kit on their sister site carparts4less.

another,but maybe more risky way is to go for the cheapest option ECP offer.....reason....if they dont have the SMF kit you want they

will supplement it with valeo or another known brand in the cheap box. how i know this,is because my valeo kit was supplied in the cheap product box!

but was a genuine valeo kit!

good luck