Fiat Ducato - (all) gear shifting is hard, requires effort (yes smooth; not grinding)

[ricksanchez]

I'm about to buy a Fiat Ducato multijet 2006 (in Germany)

I took it to a ride, and discovered 3 "strange" things:

1. shifting gears (all, incl. rev) requires effort. maybe 3x the effort for other vans/cars (i've driven maybe 10 so far).
The push doesn't feel like rust / no grinding or skipping or ridgy - just a hard push.
The motor & the car's underbelly looks very good, i.e. no rust, no dirty clean, tidy.
Owner (private) says he got it this way,
and that the clutch was replaced last year.

2. The foot on the clutch is touching the wheel stem(?).
I feel the wheel rotating on my shoe, the one that's on the clutch.
is this is normal

3. The RPM sounds quite low. Owner says he jump starts without pressing the gas pedal -> just releasing the clutch slowly until it starts moving.
This makes sense?

(i'm not a native english speaker; this looks like a very helpful forum though, hence).

Thanksalot.

 

[ricksanchez]

p.s. the car is annually / regularly treated.

 

[Lenny HB]

1. The gearchange probably needs new cables they are about £300 in the UK.
2. probably depends on the size of your feet it is fairly close but I can't check as I have an auto.
3. Not sure what you mean.

 

[ricksanchez]

About #3:
the engine has X rotation per minute while on neutral. The car mechanic can tweak that, for numerous reasons.

Again, I'm not an expert, but I had a similar tweak done to my motorbike, and then the engine's hummm (on neutral) sounds lower.
Another side effect is, the treashold for engine turn off is higher (i.e. it will turn off faster when you ride slow without gas).

About #2
Not a big shoe. Again, I had ridden a dozen cars & vans, in none of them I felt the wheel turning.
(See attachment for more details about my shoe size)

#1: thank you

 

[jockaneezer]

I'm not sure of that model, but on one of our previous vehicles, I had to replace the universal joint on the steering column, it had a plastic shroud that was fixed to the floor and I never refitted it, so occasionally your foot would contact the steering shaft. Maybe someone has removed this ?

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[donkey]

Hi
There are two gear change cables, one for across the box in neutral and one for engaging gears. So is it stiff across the box, only up & down or both?

Geoff

 

[Trevor Wbm]

Re the gear change - my Boxer needs a lot more effort than I think it should, not helped by it being biased towards left hand drive, but I've just put it down to it being how it's supposed to be. Maybe not - I've found replacements from around £80. I'll see if my tame mechanic can fit them for a sensible price. If things improve, thank you in advance for raising the point ..