306 Shaking/Gearbox?

My 95 M reg 306 has been shaking between 55mph and 70mph for some time
now.

I took it to a garage and he said he didn't really understand what was
wrong but the gearbox was making weird noises and could be the problem.

Does anyone have experience of this sort of problem or is he just trying
to get a gearbox sale?

 

The first thing I'd think of would be that the steering tracking is out
and just needs to be adjusted.

Don't ask this particular garage to sort it, he sounds like an idiot or
a con merchant.

 

Wheel balance check at the same time too.
DaveK.

 

Try getting your wheels balanced first. Is the shake worse when braking at
these speeds? My inclination would be to pay £5-£10 to get the wheels
balanced and then seeing if the fault persists. Gearbox really wouldn't
give these syptoms even if knackered.

 

I had a similar problem, it originally started in a fairly narrow
range of speeds and felt like it was coming from the nearside front
wheel, which made me think it was a problem with wheel
balance and/or tracking, as suggested above.

However it kept getting worse, and I took it to my local garage
who took it for a quick drive and initially guessed it was a
part of the suspension that had broken or come loose.

Once they got it up on the lift, they found nothing wrong with
any of the suspension components and tracked it down to
the offside inboard CV joint which was starting to break up.

So I would check those things first before allowing anyone to
pull the gearbox apart.

My garage had my car for just over an hour, and that included getting the
replacement driveshaft deliverd from their supplier. So I would tend
to agree that with that statement.

-Mark