[DrEvyl]

I've been having an issue the last few days, and wanted to ask about this and see if it's really an issue or if I'm just being paranoid..

Anyway... about a week ago I was driving and I pressed down on the clutch and it felt really odd... dunno how to describe it, but the resistance seemed different than normal (softer). I have been having issues with my cheapie floormats (bought then just to have something until I can get Canadian mats) getting under the pedals, and I thought that might have been the issue... but now it's doing something that makes me wonder..

The last 4-5 days I have been experiencing a problem that is quite annoying.. When the tranny is cold, it does not want to go into first or second gear while the vehicle is moving. I really have to fiddle with it and even double clutching doesn't seem to work. I notice this because I live on a big hill and go downhill to work every morning, and the car will accellerate between shifts. So if I pull out of my driveway, take off in first, and then shift it into neutral while it's coasting downhill, I can't shift it into second gear. It feels like the gear is locked out.

Once the transmission warms up, it goes into any gear just fine. It's only when it's cold that it has the problem.

Anyone else experience this? Any ideas?

My car is a month old and has 1700 miles. I've driven it in a spirited manner, but haven't hammered on it.

[stiperformance]

It sounds normal, give it time to warm up. Don't force it in gear.

[dmacalot]

had the very same problem when i first got my car. drove it pretty cold, had a hard time shifting into gear (first and second) not too much to worry about though, a few more miles and it should go away for good. good luck

[whiplash306]

DrEvyl, I've got the same problem and have had it since day one. I now have 3,880 miles on the car and it will still do that during the first few warm up miles. If you read on in this forum, you will see that numerous other people have experienced the same. It has everything to do with the temperature outside, as when it is scorching hot here in Texas, I can park the car for 2-3 days w/o driving it and it will shift w/o any difficulty whatsoever. However, I can park the car for 3 hours on a really cold day and come out and the difficulty with shifting will present itself again. It's no problem as far as I'm concerned. Numerous others have experienced it as I mentioned above and thankfully, the STi has plenty of power to make up for it in 3rd gear. Not sure that I helped as to the "why" of this problem, but maybe it helps to know that others are dealing with the same....

[DrEvyl]

The cold thing kinda baffles me... The couple weeks I bought the car is was down in the 20, I parked it outside and I didn't have this problem. The last week it's been in the 40's and 50's, and I've been parking it in my garage. It's like 55-60 degrees in my garage.

I can't get it up fast enough to make 3rd usable on my way to the freeway.

[Slowride]

When you can't downshift into 2nd or 1st and the tranny is warm, then you have a problem. Happened on my '02 and I got new 1st/2nd gears and synchros.

[yxan2]

I have put synthetic tranny oil which helps in this aspect a lot

[Slowride]

Cool! What are you using? How long has it been in there?

[yxan2]

i am using the mobil 1 75-90 synthetic, I have had it in for about 2K miles now and cold winter mornings definetely feel better.
I also used it in my old subaru for 75K miles no tranny issues at all, since some people are sceptic about synthetic oils I figured I might as well drop that now

[Slowride]

Yeah, I'm one of the skeptics, and I'd love to get rid of the cold tranny blues... I just don't want to create other problems in the process. Please keep us informed periodically.

[MKIVSupra]

I don't know but I have no problems shifting my STi into any gear regardless of temps. Coldest it's been is in the single digits. It shifts beautifully, which is also why I am sticking with regular dino gear oil when the time comes to change it.

[RadarOnPaws]

I have had this from day one. Warms up and then is fine. Although, even warm, to shift into first while rolling, pretty much have to rev match or it does not like to go in.

[sciolist]

Anyone else experience this? Any ideas?

The only thing that's come to my mind (and I'm getting way out of my depth here) is that the tranny oil needs to warm up a bit. I think maybe the oil works kind of like a viscous coupling on the leading edge of the synchro ring, and it can't do that as effectively when cool.

This theory is backed up by two shaky observations: 1) In my car the phenomenon is definitely temperature related and abates with warmup. 2) Even stone cold I can get into second, but I need to match the revs close, and double clutching helps some.

Why else would it go away with warmup?

[roadrnr37]

One of the fundamental reasons that a tranny needs to be warm when in use is the fact that there are different metals iside the transmission.

This is a old way of lookig at things but it still aplies to the STI

A steel shaft with a copper or bronze synchro will have to be warm in order for the tolerances to be the way the designer wants them. When they put these transmission together (a.k.a design them) they look at how and when the "normal" operating temp will be.....
No if we atek this into account and we see that the brnonze, "soft" material of the syunchro is cold and in this case "shrunk" it will have a tendancy to stick on the slide for its particular gear, thus making it seem very hard to shift, until this material has expanded to its normal operating size. Heat expansino is the engineers worst nigthmare, so they have to over come this one way or another.


I hope this helped alittle on the why? end of things.

I to have experianced many problems, with several "new" transmissions and this is not uncommon. As time goes on and the synchros get worn alittle they will looses up so that you will experiance this less and less.

Synthetics will help, but remember that if you try and use a synthetic late in the life of the tranny, it can cause slippage of the synchros. so if you are going to use it, get it in early and keep using it.