I was out for a spirited drive last night and I happened to miss fifth gear when driving at a decent speed, the lights changed so I slowed and tried to change down through the gears but couldn't.
When I came to a stop I couldn't select any gears and had noticed the engine light had came on!
I turned the ignition off and could select all gears fine when not running!
I started the engine and once again couldn't select any gears!
I turned off the ignition, put it in gear and started the car, drove straight home without any issues going through any gears.
When on my driveway I turned the ignition off again and started it out of gear and was able to select gears fine but the engine management light is still on!
What the hell happened?!?!

07 Impreza WRX, bog standard.

Any help/advice appreciated.

 

sounds like a clutch issue to me... although the ability to select gears when you got it moving again may be evidence against that. no idea re the engine light, so ultimately not much help! sorry!

 

It's very strange to be fair.

Absolutely no issues at all today, even the eml isn't on!

I reckon it was almost like a limp home mode thing.
Clutch and gearbox got hot and as a precaution the car attempted to stop me selecting gears!

Seems fine at the moment though I am gonna get the transmission in general looked at soon cos it seems to move around a lot.

 

There is nothing on the car that could prevent you from selecting gears, it's all mechanical.

Might be a leaking slave cylinder.

 

 

Chances are the two are not related or only in the sense that you were ragging the bollocks off your car. CEL light may have come on because you were dumping loads of unburnt fuel into the exhaust system or the catalyst were getting to hot - have you removed that cats?? The clutch problem again is probably a result of things getting too hot - could be either the clutch itself, the hydraulic clutch fluid overheating or gearbox oil over heating - not sure if there is a oil temperature sensor on MT gearbox??

 

When you say you 'missed' 5th gear, do you mean you selected 3rd by mistake?

 

No, tried to change to 5th at speed and just didn't get it first time, at that point I left it in neutral and just rolled to a stop cos I noticed I couldn't change down through the gears either.

I was really pushing the car, happened to be pulling away from a focus ST.
(Which I was proud of btw considering my car is completely stock)
I ran my own diagnostics on it tonight and got four codes all relating to the same thing,
Secondary Air Injection System malfunction.