'03 Corsa 1.0 Gearbox problem

[samdale]

My friend just got back from a drive and said theres something wrong with his gearbox. From what I can gather it is now "harder to pull away" (possibly stuck in 3rd/5th).

The gear stick doesn't spring back to the middle and feels loose. Reverse is nowhere to be found.

Haven't had a chance to try driving it myself but there was no rough treatment involved in causing this problem

Any ideas on what the problem is?

[davepoth]

Sounds like a problem with the selector mechanism.

[firman]

My mate had a similar problem, turned out to be the linkage which is made of plastic and wears pretty quickly. Only cost him about £50 to fix

[YoungOne]

Had this on my swift, was a linkage cable come undone.
I lost 5th and reverse, motorway on my way home was fun

[HellDiver]

Common problem, the gear linkage ends break up. There was a recall if I remember correctly. Cheap enough repair anyway.