3 min fix for 2nd gear hard shifting
 

Pick your favorite manual transmission fluid by reading other posts: Motul, Pentosin, Amsoil, OEM, whatever.

I currently have Amsoil in the transmission. If I start cold in the winter, second gear will crunch on every shift, and even if I double clutch when it is below 0°F. That is if I can even get it to go into 2nd gear. When this happens I usually just end up skipping 2nd gear altogether.

So here's the fix...

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... your not going to like it, so just stop here if and save yourself some time an aggravation if you are the type to get upset...


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...The 3 min fix:

Let the car idle with the transmission in neutral and your foot off of the clutch pedal for at least 3 minutes. The result will be nice smooth 2nd gear shifts. In REALLY cold weather, or with more stubborn fluid, add another minute or so. This has worked every time for me this winter in Minnesota. :)

So warming up the transmission and getting it nice and lubed up helps smoothen it out? Huh, never would've thought.

Did you miss something?
 

There has been a lot of discussion on these forums about difficult 2nd gear shifts from a cold start. This is not true of most cars. Even starting in below zero weather, if one gear shifts well, generally all gears shift well. With our cars, this is not the case with second gear due to the design of the syncros. Most of the discussions have been about which transmission fluid to use to mitigate the problem. I wanted to provide a simple detailed method for the readers of this forum, especially the newbies, to resolve the problem regardless of which transmission fluid they use (or are trying out), and which climate they drive in.

It would also be nice if Toyota/Scion/Subaru would address this problem more seriously.

It is not a problem, it is a tradeoff.

I have had cars that have better shifting transmissions that do not have this problem, so why the compromise?

Better shifting does not = stronger.

what the hell...My second gear is smooth as butter but my third gear feels rough and my car only. Is this also common?

Yea, sure: I'm so sure the Getrag unit in the 1999 BMW M3 I had was not as strong as the one in my FR-S. It may be true that better shifting does not always = stronger, but both can be accomplished with the proper design.

Edit: I really need to be more precise in my comments here. When fully warmed up, the FR-S shifts as smoothly as any car I have ever driven. It is only that it take a LONG time for this to happen in 2nd gear unless I specifically warm it up for that purpose. All of the other cars I have had shifted good and equally well in all gears from a cold start, or after about a few minutes of slower driving in colder weather. After 15 minutes of slow, city driving in cold weather (≤ –10°F), my FR-S still will not smoothly shift into second gear. Some of this may be due to my current transmission fluid, but it should still not take that long with a quality fluid that meets all of the manufacturers specs for the transmission.

I haven't read about it in these forums, but you never know. Is this shifting better with a warm up as I suggested? If not, have you tried changing the transmission fluid?

another easy way is slightly going into neutral before going into 2nd gear. works every time.

What fluids are people using? My car is pretty much new (500 miles) but I do plan on upgrading the brake fluid next weekend might as well do that also.

When my dad bought his last tacoma it came with the wrong fluid in the manual trans. He had to do this for about 10mins before shifting at all was even possible.



This is an extreme example so please don't run to the dealer saying your fluid is wrong.

All of the fluids I mentioned in my initial post. You can do some searches on these as they have been discussed a lot in this forum. People have many different opinions, some strongly advocate one fluid or another. You can probably find proponents of every quality fluid on this forum. Here is the grandaddy of these types of threads:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16604

While it doesn't get nearly as cold as other places here in SF, the temperatures certainly do drop at night, and my car is effectively "street parked" since our garage is open on the sides (gated and completely vented).

The car shifts butter smooth after about 5 minutes of easy driving, but I give it a minimum of 30 seconds to warm up (revs to drop).