Mk3 Mondeo heater.

[3xpendable]

Interesting Terry, ever since I've had my car it's been hard to get into 1st gear and not so much, but 2nd too. Could be the cables?

Oh yes, I thought rust was kind of a forgone conclusion on Fords so didn't mention it! Had a go in one of the directors 2015 Mondeo's today, pretty nice, though did suffer noticeable turbo lag.

EDIT: I might look at my lower gearbox mount:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/ ... tm?t=94736

[TerryG]

The problem isn't actually the cables themselves, it is the plastic socket on the end that goes over the ball on the selectors on the gearbox, over time they become oval. You can buy a "tool" (bit of plastic that clips the gear lever in place) to help adjusting them. To set (or bodge) the adjusters, wedge the gear lever dead centre so it can't move (or use the approved tool), unlock the adjusters and using the force move the selectors until they are central then lock the adjusters again. I have found you can either look at the adjusters or touch them but not both at the same time. One notch to either side is a bodge solution to get a little bit more movement in the direction you need. It is however just a short term fix as the socket will continue to stretch and you can't do it twice or you will either lose 1/2 or 5/r (or r or 5/6 if you have a 6 speed box) or 1/3/5, 2/4/6 you get the idea.
Ford are expletives and only sell the whole cable and after buying them, I was reluctant to just replace the ends. However having an old cable I didn't mind breaking while investigating the selectors you can with a bit of jiggling remove them from the ends of the cable so you could in theory swap them over if you can get enough fingers in to do the job.