Okay, I have a 2006 Cobalt SS S.C. with 83,000 miles... For awhile, my gears made a grinding noise going into 3rd and 4th. Yea, I could granny-shift and prevent the grind by holding down the clutch for a couple of seconds, then slowly going into 3rd, but it was always an annoying problem indeed. Well, recently 2nd gear went obsolete, and I was having to shift 1st to 3rd. Then I started loosing the ability to shift all together, rendering me to the side of the road, having to call a tow. We always thought the synchro was out, and now I am being told that it could also be the shift fork.

NOTE:

The shifter literally does not catch any gear now. You can move it in any direction without engaging the clutch. Any help would be more than appreciated.

 

cables broken or stretched.

check to see if you can engage gears by hand on the transmission.

 

I had an old talon I accidently did a 2-3-2 shift in once and over the course of a week or so, I lost gears one by one. opened the trans to find lots of metal bits and gears with the teeth ground off. lol. sounds similar to what you're going through. might be time for a trans swap/rebuild.

but before you do that, take off the driver's side wheel and splash guard, pop the cables off and see if the trans engages by moving the levers by hand. that'll narrow it down to cables or trans and should only take 15 minutes or so.

 

No need to pull the wheel off. Just reach under the fuse box and feel around.

 

Okay, thanks! I actually have it sitting on jack stands now.