Choppy shifting

[radroach]

Stock trans fluid, over 40k miles. Some days are harder than others when it gets cold. Warming up the car for 5-10 minutes and taking it easy seems to work ok for me.

Sometimes it goes right into the next gear smoothly, sometimes it grinds, sometimes it'll cause the whole car to shake, or sometimes not even go all the way in gear.

This morning, I had a perfect drive, every gear change felt good. But on other days when it was colder I had to take a long time before the car was up to temp and felt ready to drive.

Sometimes I feel its all in the type of pressure you put on it, my timing, all sorts of things. Doing everything by feel helps a lot. If the shifter feels like it's ok to go into gear at cold temps, then it'll go, otherwise it'll stick and need a bit more warming up.

[Formula Vee]

Not sure if you're talking about actually getting into a gear with the shifter, or the way car behaves, in terms of smoothness/acceleration, when shifting. I've had no real issues with the former but am less than thrilled with the latter.

My experience echoes Itzed's -- the transmission is a pain in the ass with spirited driving. It's fine when I'm crawling, and fine when I'm flying through the gears and shifting close to redline. The stuff in the middle is sometimes choppy and laggy, especially if I try to get on the gas too quickly after a gear change; there's this split-second moment of hesitation before I get full power from the engine. There was some discussion about a possible clutch-delay valve in the mix, but nothing ever came of that, as far as I know. That's exactly what it feels like to me, on occasion.

I have about 9k miles on my car.

[magicchef]

Shifting is most choppy when up-shifting, especially from 1st to second. The suggestion to do "spirited shifting" has been an improvement. I am used to gentle shifting pressure, letting the gears mesh as the syncros do their thing. This does not work in the BRZ. When I am in the higher gears at speed, shifting up and down is pretty smooth. I had a mechanic at a Subaru dealership drive it with me, and he said some people have had the same complaint, have to be assertive with it, and this transmission "is not like a BMW." Thanks for all the input.

[MikeM7]

I have issues with 1st and 2nd. Seems like about 50% of the time I get some kind of jerkyness/rocking back and forth.. I wish it were more smooth. I just did stage 1 tune with OFT hoping that would fix it.. I think it made it worse.

I've owned 2 manual sports cars and a manual wrangler, so I'm not new to mt. It's getting very annoying. I find it very difficult to drive like a normal commuter, but aggressive driving/fast accelerating seems to help. Problem is I don't want to drive like that all the time.

16K miles on mine.

[spicyricecake]

Kinda related, but how long does it usually take for a person to get perfectly smooth at shifting? It's been about a month for me and I'm still no where near perfect (good enough to drive though...)

I still get the occasional first gear jerk, over throttling by accident (I tend to put the clutch right before the bite point -> gas -> clutch out so that I don't have to baby the throttle... works most of the time, but not sure if this is the correct way to do it), and minor jerks upshifting in 2nd -> 3rd -> 4th.

Still can't get heel toe right; My toes hit the brake too hard when I'm hitting the throttle with my foot. It's amazing how people do it without putting extra brake pressure when doing these...

I know I was an ok driver in AT (trust me, there are bad drivers for AT) but I just want to know I'm at least on the average side of hte curve for learning how to drive MT.

Sorry for the lengthy post and possibly jacking the thread! lol

[TheVoiceOfReason]

Sounds to me like a lot of people are letting off the clutch too fast, and moving the shifter too slow. I'll agree it is harder to shift this car smoothly than others. My civic with 302k miles on its original clutch is easier, but it is possible to shift this car smoothly. Mine shifts very smooth, with only a little extra resistance in 2nd on cold days for a shift or two. For me its a quick flip of the shifter. Very little force, but a very swift flick of the wrist, regardless of how I am driving. I could make the issues people describe if I intentionally did things differently though. I would love to drive some of these transmissions people have issues with just to see if there is actually an issue. I'm sure some of the people posting about issues have actual defects, but I think many are not.

[spicyricecake]

Originally Posted by TheVoiceOfReason

Sounds to me like a lot of people are letting off the clutch too fast, and moving the shifter too slow. I'll agree it is harder to shift this car smoothly than others. My civic with 302k miles on its original clutch is easier, but it is possible to shift this car smoothly. Mine shifts very smooth, with only a little extra resistance in 2nd on cold days for a shift or two. For me its a quick flip of the shifter. Very little force, but a very swift flick of the wrist, regardless of how I am driving. I could make the issues people describe if I intentionally did things differently though. I would love to drive some of these transmissions people have issues with just to see if there is actually an issue. I'm sure some of the people posting about issues have actual defects, but I think many are not.

I concur... At least I hope my issue is just my little experience with MT instead of my prescious car :3

[Eski]

welcome to owning a subaru. master of hard shifting.

[tahdizzle]

L2Manual (edit: x1000 after reading all these posts)

99% of these posts is poor technique.

If you experience pulsing, rocking, jerking etc when shifting (up or down), its because you don't know how to manual.

[donoman]

Was the shifting always bad on your cars? Or did it get worse over time?

I test drove a 2015 BRZ Limited and the shifter was good. Certainly better than my BMW. Whatever salesman who said "It's not a BMW" is trippin. BMW has some of the worst transmissions I have ever shifted. He has never driven an S2000, obviously.

[MikeM7]

Originally Posted by tahdizzle

L2Manual (edit: x1000 after reading all these posts)

99% of these posts is poor technique.

If you experience pulsing, rocking, jerking etc when shifting (up or down), its because you don't know how to manual.

Such a mature response... looks like something I'd get in my inbox after a game of call of duty.

I actually agree that it is not directly the cars fault, but to tell someone that's been driving stick for 10 years "lol L2manual!" is not very helpful.

I think my issues are the result of a combination of things...

-Owned the car 2 weeks
-Keep changing seat position (closer/farther from clutch)
-Just tuned with OFT
-Cold start in the morning (this is when i get worst 1st gear jerks/rocks)
-Inconsistent driving (drove it hard whole first week, then hours of highway, then regular commuting)

Basically, I'm causing constant inconsistencies so I can never quite nail it down.

Which, in the end, yes it all amounts to user error as opposed to mechanical issues, however there are better ways to have this discussion than a dismissive "learn to drive bro".

I mean I thought it was a given that we aren't talking about mechanical defects, I was just looking for tips and pointers from seasoned brz owners for how best to drive this specific car.

[rburrow87]

Originally Posted by spicyricecake

Kinda related, but how long does it usually take for a person to get perfectly smooth at shifting? It's been about a month for me and I'm still no where near perfect (good enough to drive though...)

I still get the occasional first gear jerk, over throttling by accident (I tend to put the clutch right before the bite point -> gas -> clutch out so that I don't have to baby the throttle... works most of the time, but not sure if this is the correct way to do it), and minor jerks upshifting in 2nd -> 3rd -> 4th.

Still can't get heel toe right; My toes hit the brake too hard when I'm hitting the throttle with my foot. It's amazing how people do it without putting extra brake pressure when doing these...

I know I was an ok driver in AT (trust me, there are bad drivers for AT) but I just want to know I'm at least on the average side of hte curve for learning how to drive MT.

Sorry for the lengthy post and possibly jacking the thread! lol

I drove a manual MK5 Volkswagen Jetta for about 2-2.5 years, but probably only like 8 or 9k miles over that time since I didn't have a commute for most of that time. I felt like I got pretty good at it and was able to shift smoothly all the time and didn't stall or even jerk 99% of the time.

Then I traded it in for the BRZ April of last year; just under 10k miles on it now. It took me quite a while (2, maybe 3+ months?) until I was confident trying to start on even a slight incline. It's definitely a lot less forgiving than something like a Jetta. But I've gotten very used to it over the last few months and I can shift with little to no jerking now, even in the 1-2 up-shift.

One thing that I found helped me a lot was to not let up on the gas completely when shifting up. I notice if you let up off the gas completely, even if you're just cruising around and shifting casually, it takes longer to rev back up than in any other position, which causes the jerking if you're trying to shift at a "normal" (keep with traffic) pace. When you let off the gas between gears, only let up enough so that when you go into the next gear, you are basically maintaining speed. It's not really rev matching the up-shift, more like throttle matching... or something.

Ever since I started doing this (couple months ago?) and developed a feel for how much to let off and when to apply gas again, my up-shifting has gotten massively smoother and more consistent. Still jerks lightly once in a while, but nothing like I used to. Could just be coincidence and I just finally got a better feel for the car, not 100% sure.

I don't see any harm in doing it that way, but I'm also still probably more of a noob when it comes to manuals so someone feel free to say it's idiotic or explain it better.

As for the shifter notchiness... yeah this definitely ain't no German transmission. I'm experiencing pretty much what everyone else does; feeling the gears mesh, doesn't like to go into 2 or down-shift at all when cold, etc. I also find, like everyone else, that it helps to "tell" it to go into each gear instead of merely "suggesting" like you would with a VW or BM. And I like it that way.

[tahdizzle]

Originally Posted by MikeM7

Such a mature response... looks like something I'd get in my inbox after a game of call of duty.

I actually agree that it is not directly the cars fault, but to tell someone that's been driving stick for 10 years "lol L2manual!" is not very helpful.

I think my issues are the result of a combination of things...

-Owned the car 2 weeks
-Keep changing seat position (closer/farther from clutch)
-Just tuned with OFT
-Cold start in the morning (this is when i get worst 1st gear jerks/rocks)
-Inconsistent driving (drove it hard whole first week, then hours of highway, then regular commuting)

Basically, I'm causing constant inconsistencies so I can never quite nail it down.

Which, in the end, yes it all amounts to user error as opposed to mechanical issues, however there are better ways to have this discussion than a dismissive "learn to drive bro".

I mean I thought it was a given that we aren't talking about mechanical defects, I was just looking for tips and pointers from seasoned brz owners for how best to drive this specific car.

There is at least one thread that I know of that has already addressed this problem.

The problem is with people that just buy the car and say "hey! I'm going to join a forum, and post all these things about my car that no one knows about!"

[MikeM7]

Originally Posted by tahdizzle

There is at least one thread that I know of that has already addressed this problem.

The problem is with people that just buy the car and say "hey! I'm going to join a forum, and post all these things about my car that no one knows about!"

People get the car, they get excited, they want to talk about it. It's only natural.. searching and reading is helpful, but it's not engaging/fun. I guess for long timers, it can be annoying seeing the same threads repeatedly, but ignoring them is always an option. You aren't required to participate in every thread.

Also, this is a general discussion forum, I kind of figured it was meant for shooting the shit on whatever you felt like talking about. I'd imagine just about everything has been talked about several times over on this forum anyway. It's a community for discussion, not a library.