I am experiencing a strange problem with my TL. About half the time when I shift from neutral to 1st, the transmission locks up and it does not let me shift completely into the gear. If I dare take my foot off the clutch while its stuck midway between 1st and neutral, I get the horrible grinding sound and the gear pops into first.

But what I always do is take it back into neutral and then shift it into first again. And the second time it glides into 1st. Shifting into the other gears is as smooth as it can be. And the times when I can shift into first from neutral without problems, the shift is just as smooth as the other gears.

So it seems to be a random problem that I wish would go away. I spoke to the Acura service rep about it and he suggested that maybe I wasn't shifting properly. I just stared at him surprised and told him that I was pretty sure that was not the reason.

He offered to take a look at it but I'm just hesitant of having my baby opened up as we all know once a car is opened up it is never the same.

I thought maybe someone might have experienced a similar problem and have a solution for me. And I have close to 9000 miles on the car so I'm pretty sure its out of the break-in period.

All suggestions (including tips on how to use a manual transmission) are welcome...

 

i think it might have something to do with the synchros. for example, if you shift into second and then into first, you'll have no problem. changing out the trans fluid to Amsoil or GM Synchromesh would help, too...

 

Are you doing this from a stop or when the car is already rolling? If your going over a certain speed (I think it's 5 mph or so), the tranny will lock you out from first gear. If your experiencing this from a stop, well it happens to all the manual cars I've driven so I think it's normal. I think it has to do with the synchros not being lined up. If it doesn't go in the first time, all you really have to do is just take your foot off the clutch and try again or even just let the car roll an inch so the synchros can line up. As another option you can just shift into another gear and then shift back to first but you shouldnt have to do this if you do either of the other two.

 

As the poster above noted, this is fairly common with MT. I used to have the same problem all the time when trying to go into reverse on my Sentra. Never had the problem going into 1st, however.

 

Off Topic Question - How do I make my Signature show up in the message group. When I preview the message the sig is there. When I review the board, it's gone.

What gives?

---Update---- I think I get it now, I have to check the box "Show Your Signature" twice.

 

this could be stupid but do you have to clutch depressed all the way. a little slack on it can give you that grinding noise from the synchros.

 

I suggest that you consider getting the MTF drained and refilled. I have heard that there are lots of wear metals with Honda-made cars. Perhaps this is causing your condition.

FWIW, my TL has 6K miles and I sometimes get this situation when shifting into 3rd gear. I don't need to pull out but just give a little more push and it will engage fine.

 

hhhmmm... i glide smoothly through all 7 gears with no problem....

 

yeah i have no problems going through each gear, it's still pretty smooth but i have noticed that it's not the same as it was when i first got the car. i will likely switch out the MT oil for some synthetic stuff as per the recommendation of others on this board.

 

This happens to me once in a while. Sometimes I just let go of the clutch and try again. Other times I just start from 2nd gear.
This happen on the 03 Accord coupe 6mt I had before. The two cars' manual tranny shifts very similar.

 

Happens here as well.

 

To aag12;

Here is a collection of writings I did as a member of another gearhead website. Hope it helps.


================================================== =============



Note: As it says, this is a collage of various postings I have made over the past one and a half years on the altimas.net website. So you are likely to see redundancy as well as a few other items of disarray. But enjoy and I hope you learn something.




PROPER MANUAL TRANSMISSION DRIVING TECHNIQUES

What follows is a collection of writings which I have posted at various times on this website in an effort to help answer some questions regarding the proper manner in which a manual transmission should be operated. While there are certainly many ways to drive a car with a manual transmission, there is really only one correct way. I was most fortunate to have learned these techniques while I was still in my teenage years. In so doing, I was able to avoid developing entrenched habits before they became really bad habits and difficult to correct. It is my hope that this helps you learn what I have learned and perfected over the years. If you do, you will reap the rewards, both financial and in the knowledge that you have mastered a technique that few do in their lifetimes. Have fun!

Under normal driving situations (not racing), when you start out from a standing start, you do so with the lowest possible RPMs, get the clutch out to full engagement as soon as you can while adding throttle. If you do this correctly, the transition will be smooth and seamless, and the wear on your clutch disk, pressure plate, release bearing, and flywheel will be minimized.

If properly designed (sufficient size and clamping pressure, etc.), and properly installed with no defects (correct torque, non-faulty equipment, alignment, etc.), then the next, and most important, factor to the life of the clutch assembly is the operator.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY A CLUTCH CANNOT LAST THE LIFE OF THE ENGINE UNDER NORMAL DRIVING CONDITIONS.

When I speak of engine life here, I am referring to life before a serious teardown or part replacement such as a timing chain (200,000+ miles) or headwork. If you cannot get at least 100,000 miles out of a clutch, you are doing something terribly wrong. Obviously, racing and other extreme conditions such as towing constitute a whole different approach and, as such, do not come under this.


Don'ts:

Do not use any more engine speed (RPMs) than absolutely necessary to get the car rolling in first gear.
Do not hold the car on a hill with the clutch.

Do not wait for a traffic light to turn green with the transmission in gear and the clutch depressed.

Do not rest your foot on the clutch while driving.


Do not ride the clutch in any gear (obviously you will to a small degree in first to start off).

Do not down shift by just removing your foot from the gas, moving the shifter into a lower gear, then releasing the clutch slowly.


Do's

Start off smoothly and with low engine speed, and shift in such a manner that if you had a passenger on board, they would not even notice the shifts.

Hold the car on hills with the brakes.. that's what brakes are for. NEVER hold a car on a hill with the clutch. The amount of heat generated by doing this is incredible.

While waiting for a light to change or while sitting in heavy traffic, put the transmission in neutral and get your foot completely off of the clutch petal. Leaving it in gear for extended periods heats up and shortens the life of the release bearing. The normal condition of a clutch is fully engaged so it stands to reason that's where it should be most of the time.

Resting your foot on the clutch petal while driving engages the release bearing.. see above.

Avoid riding the clutch as much as is humanly possible. You will extend its life significantly.

If you do not know how to properly downshift, DON’T. Use the brakes (should do this anyway), and avoid downshifting any more than necessary. Improper downshifting is analogous to riding the clutch because that is what you are actually doing. Learn how to properly downshift first and save yourself the frustration of premature clutch failure.

Clutches are wear items, heavily affected by heat caused by friction. In a front wheel drive car, they are costly to replace, so unless you like shelling out a lot of money periodically for the replacement of these components, learn the correct way. Learn it until it becomes second nature like breathing.



I spent some time teaching a lady with whom I worked 10 years ago these techniques when she purchased a new '92 Honda Accord LX. When I last spoke with her, she had well over 140,000 miles on the original clutch with no signs of slippage. So I'm not jerking anyone's chain here. Learn to operate a manual transmission correctly and you will reap the rewards by saving a lot of money. Plus you will be one of the few who know how to do this right.

I don't mean to set myself up here as some kind of guru because I am not. But I have been driving vehicles with manual transmissions for over 40 years. I have spent the time to perfect the process into an art form because when done correctly, that’s what it is. When I sold my '88 Mustang LX 302CID, it was 6 years old and had 77,000 miles on it. When the buyer drove it, he asked me when I replaced the clutch because to him, it felt very positive. I told him that I had never replaced it and that it was the original unit. I added that it wouldn't make any sense to replace a clutch after only 77,000 miles since that is not very much wear. He had a little bit of a hard time believing this, but he did buy the car. Three months later, he called me up to let me know how much he liked the car and to tell me had had not wrapped it around a tree. He again asked about the clutch and I again told him that it was the original clutch.

I used to own a 1966 Chevelle SS396/360HP. I was the original owner of the car. For a period of about 2 years, I was street racing the car frequently on the weekends. At 83,000 miles when I sold it, it would still break traction in all four gears and the clutch had no slippage. It was tight and strong. Now granted, American cars have traditionally had stronger clutches than Japanese cars. This is changing because the Japanese are putting larger and stronger (torque) engines in their cars.



Downshifting

Ah yes, downshifting. If I had to name just one facet of manual transmission errors-of-operation, this would probably be it.

To understand how to operate a manual transmission, you have to know how the clutch assembly and transmission work, and I am going to take the assumption that most do on this forum. I will only clarify synchronizers. They serve to match the speed of the gears in the transmission as the shifter is moved to a given gear. Now for downshifting.

Let's say you are in fourth gear and you are approaching a stop sign, so you decide to downshift from fourth gear into third. What most people do is just remove their foot from the throttle, depress the clutch while moving the shifter from fourth to third, then start releasing the clutch slowly until they achieve full engagement. If you do this, what you are actually doing is riding the clutch in third gear. After all, the engine has returned to idle (or close to it), you get into third, then just ease the clutch out which pulls the engine from idle up to the RPM's at which it will operate at whatever speed you are traveling in third gear. Here is the correct way to do this in steps that I will break down in a moment.

Raise your foot off of the throttle.

Depress the clutch.

Start the shifter up into third.

As you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out a bit (doesn't have to be all the way) while at the same time blipping the throttle to increase engine speed BEYOND that which it will operate in the chosen lower gear.

Depress the clutch again.

Engage the chosen lower gear.

Let the clutch out while adding throttle.

As the engine RPM's decrease they will be met by the engaging clutch and opening throttle.

This should be a simple, smooth, fluid motion and you will know you've done it right if there is no jerking as the clutch comes out in the last step. Now for some details.

As you move into the neutral gate with your foot off of the throttle, the engine RPM's will be returning to idle. This is the point at which you want to blip the throttle a bit while at the same time engaging the clutch some. You want to get the engine turning faster than it will when you are in the lower gear you have chosen. The reason is that you want to spin the gears up to a speed that equals that at which they will be operating when you finally release the clutch in your downshift. If you do this right, there is no clutch slippage because the engine and the gears in the transmission will be spinning at the same or nearly the same RPM's. No slippage means you will get into gear with full engagement of the clutch sooner and with virtually no wear. To best understand this, you really need to know how a clutch assembly and transmission work together to deliver power from the engine to the drive wheels.

This takes a lot of practice, but if you get it down, you will be heads and shoulders above just about anyone else who drives a car with a manual transmission. You will begin to notice the mistakes other are making when they drive. Learn from their mistakes and it will both save you money and make you a far better driver.

So it's in with the clutch, start the shifter into the chosen lower gear, while passing through the neutral gate, blip the throttle and at the same time engage the clutch a bit to spin up the gears, then back in with the clutch as you get into the chosen gear, then finally release the clutch in one smooth operation.

Here's another little tip. Say you are waiting at a light for the green and your transmission is in neutral like it should be with your foot completely off of the clutch petal. When the light turns green, instead of just depressing the clutch and pushing the shifter up into first, pull the shifter partially into a higher gear first, such as second or third. The gears in those selections are not spinning as fast as the gears in first. By starting the shifter into a higher gear before you go to into first gear, you will cause less wear on the synchronizers and they will last far longer because they do not have to stop gears which are spinning at a higher speed. For cars which do not have synchronized reverse, definitely do this and you will not experience the grinding affect when shifting into reverse.

Say you are driving normally, shifting up through the gears to the one in which you wish to be for cruising. As you disengage the clutch and move the shifter to the next higher gear, you might notice a slight resistance just before you finish the shift. What you feel is the synchronizer for that gear forcing the drive gear(s) from the input shaft and the gears selected to "mesh". That is to say, their speeds are forced to equalize so that as they engage, there is no grinding and no damage to the gear teeth. That said, we can move to double clutching.

Double clutching was a technique that came about when earlier manual transmissions did not have synchronizers. If you did not double clutch, you would experience some serious gear grinding when shifting.

If you did not have synchronizers in your transmission, you would have had two choices when shifting gears: (1) put up with some really serious grinding and damage/breakage to gear teeth, or (2) manually match the speed of the gears in each selected shift so that you would eliminate the problems just mentioned in #1.

Suppose you are traveling in second gear, the engine is turning at 2500 RPM, and you are getting ready to shift to third. At the road speed you are going, let's say that once in third, your engine would be turning at 1800 RPM. When you remove your foot from the gas, the engine is going to loose RPMs quickly and by the time you get into third, the engine might only be turning 1200 RPM. Without synchronizers, you would need to raise the engine back up to 1800 RPM in order for the gears to mesh. By blipping the throttle and at the same time letting the clutch out some when you are passing through the neutral gate, you will both increase engine RPM and increase gear speed. As the engine RPMs fall back off, they will reach a point at which you will be able to complete the shift.

Since for years, manual transmissions have been fully synchronized, there is no need whatsoever to double clutch when upshifting and I definitely recommend against this practice.

Now downshifting is much like this, only in reverse. In other words, you are going from a higher gear to a lower gear so if your engine was turning at 2500 RPM and you wanted to shift to second, You would want to blip the throttle enough to raise engine speed to perhaps around 3200 - 3500 RPM.

When you are upshifting, the RPMs fall off and most people find it pretty easy to adjust to this and to add throttle at the right time so that when the clutch comes back out, they have the proper RPM's for the gear selection/road speed.

However, most people downshift by (1) removing their foot from the throttle, (2) moving the shifter into the next lower (or chosen) gear, then (3) slowly releasing the clutch while adding little or no throttle. This is NOT the proper manner in which to downshift. What you are doing in effect, is riding the clutch in reverse. In other words, you probably wouldn't dare attempt to start your car off in third gear because you would have to add a lot of throttle and really slip the clutch to get the car moving. When you downshift like the example I just gave, you are doing something similar to starting off in a higher gear, though it does take more energy to get a car moving from a dead start. Now if you double clutch during the downshift, you are spinning up the gears and the transition to the next gear will be quite smooth.


Junkyard asked a question about the concept of “passing through the neutral gate”. You don’t stop or stay in neutral. You are just passing through, so to speak. In your second question, you said I had mentioned to put the car in neutral when downshifting. Not exactly. Try this with the engine off.

Put the car in fourth. Depress the clutch and shift to third and let the clutch out. Now do the same thing, only this time as you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out some or a good deal and blip the throttle, then clutch back in, get into third, clutch comes out for the final time. That is the movement you want.

Incidentally, blipping the throttle is just a little stab at the petal, enough to raise RPMs to the desired level. You do not want to be on the throttle long because you will be in the process of shifting. Yes, this does take a lot of practice and may not come easily for many, but it is the best way, in fact the only proper way, to downshift because it very significantly reduces clutch and synchronizer wear (especially clutch), and once you get the hang of it, you will be able to do it quite fast.

The bottom line to all of this folks is to match engine speed to wheel speed in a given gear, and to do it in such a manner as to eliminate undue trauma to your drive train. I do this all of the time and have been downshifting like this since my late teens. I actually learned it from a magazine article (as I can best recall). If you know how a manual transmission and clutch assembly operate, all of the components and how they perform together, you will understand the beauty of the process.

Oh the grinding noise Junkyard hears when he starts letting up the clutch too quickly is most likely due to not having fully engaged the gear teeth and they separate (pop out of gear). That or he actually begins engaging the gear teeth before the clutch is fully depress so there is still some flywheel/disk/pressure plate contact.


One of the things I noticed right off the bat on my SE was that the clutch began to engage much too close to the floor for me (a contributor to the problem Junkyard has had). It was starting to engage about 1 inch from the floor, so I adjusted it out to 2 inches and it is fine. If you do this, just make sure you have the required toeplay, otherwise you will prematurely wear out your release bearing.

The purpose of letting the clutch out some as you pass through the neutral gate is to spin the gears up in preparation for the speed at which they must be at for the lower gear selection. This will allow you to get into that gear very easily. When you depress the clutch, you disengage the crankshaft from the transmission. The gears in the transmission will begin to slow down. By letting out the clutch some (or completely) in the neutral gate, you once again, MOMENTARILY, engage the full drive train and get the gears spinning. Only this time since you have blipped the throttle, they'll be spinning faster. As they slow down from the higher speed, your clutch will be coming out for the final time with the transmission in gear and the mesh will be smooth.

Try it both ways. Do it first the way you do it and notice that you have to add a little bit of force to get the shifter into gear. That's because the synchronizers are doing their job of gear speed meshing. Now try it the way I outlined and if you do it right, you will have virtually no resistance as you slip the shifter into your chosen gear.

Instead of going right into first as the light starts to go green, try starting the shifter into second gear.. don't have to go all the way into gear, though it won't hurt. This slows the gears down just as though you had gone on into first, but it's much easier on the synchronizers. And you won't get the "crunch" you mentioned when you have to move quickly.


To prevent rollback; practice, practice, practice, practice.

One way to do this is to find a nice little hill someplace where you won't be a bother to anyone. Take along some masking tape and mark off two sections with the tape a foot apart. Your goal is to keep the car from coasting back more than 1 foot.. of course you do not use the clutch to hold the car.. use the brakes. As you learn to do this, find another hill a little steeper. And so on, and so on.

 

It's happened to me before at a stop light even when I shifted from second to first. What I did was release the clutch again to spin the synchros in order to realign them again, which I beleive is the primary problem. Its only happened to me twice and one of the times I went from second to first.

P.S. Read Southern Boy's post above!

 

Every Honda I've ever had occasionally resists going into first when I'm stopped, usually at a light when I've been in neutral but occasionally elsewhere. My brother has observed the same on his two Civics. I've found that if I shift into second or into reverse, then back into first, it solves the issue.

 

As stated earlier, go with GM Syncromesh. See https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...ght=syncromesh

 

I have that happen once in a great while. As stated by others, either go to neutral and release and press the clutch or shift back into 2nd then to first.

It's because the synchros aren't lined up. The gear grind noise is because the synchros haven't stopped spinning.

Don't press the throttle when you're shifting, especially in 1st and 2nd. Wait until you're in gear and starting to release the clutch before adding throttle. The TL is sensitive to this.

 

vtecracer -

I'm at a complete stop. If my car is rolling and I need to shift into a gear, I always shift into second. But I basically do what you just described as the solution... I guess I just wanted to make sure that its not something I need to have looked at.

caball88 -

That was my inital thought. But it happens even if the clutch is pressed all the way in.

SouthernBoy -

I am impressed. That is an extremely well written and thorough piece of work. It definitely made me realize a few things about how I drive and I am sure it would be a gift to first time MT drivers.

ndx2, GoBig, Parker75 -

I'll definitely consider replacing my tranny fluid. I have heard a lot of good things about GM Synchromesh.

Thank you all for your feedback. I appreciate it.

 

This is so true... right now I am driving 1996 Honda Accord EX with 214K miles on it... with original clutch.. I am not here to BS you... it's original clutch and I am the original owner...

right now I am just waiting for the delivery of new TL..

 

To aag12;

Thanks. I'm pleased you found it informative and hope you got something out of it.


To parkkuen;

My friend, you are obviously doing the right things. Good for you! On June 4th, I drove a NASCAR stocker for 15 laps at Richmond International Raceway and I even rev-matched when downshifting on that car and had no problems whatsoever (I have it on tape from the in-car camera, too).

 

Great writeup on driving a manual

 

Thanks, Legend2TL. I must apologize for the redundancy. It is a collection (edited a little) of writings I had submitted on that site.

I believe the first thing a perspective manual transmission driver should do it to learn how a manual transmission and, more importantly, the clutch assembly actually works. Once one understands that, then common sense techniques will natually follow (you would think).

parkkuen writes that he has managed to get 214,000 miles on his Accord's clutch. That is impressive. I would say that he, his car, and his operating environment have served him well.

 

This does not sound at all like user error, unless you are not fully depressing the clutch pedal.

The cheapest,, fastest, and most sensible course is to change out the MTF - either with Honda Genuine, or one of the recommended aftermarket rpoducts, like GMS FM, Red Line MTL, etc. Honda MTF can result in marginal shift quality when fresh, but can also degrade rather quickly - analysis has shown it can loses its viscosity stability in 10k miles.

There is possibility that wear-in material or some adulterant is causing the synchro action to "hang up" now and then - or if the tranny was somehow exposed to water or high humidity, corrosion on the sliding parts can cause the symptoms you describe.

Again, swap out the fluid - if things stay thre same, then you may have a tranny that is less than top tier - it is possible the clutch is badly aligned or defective, but not likely - I would expect your problem to be more frequent if it were.

Has the shift mechanism had any opportunity to have been damaged or bumped out of alignment? I had a balky tranny on a 1992 Taurus SHO, and found that the tranny forks were not properly aligned, causing clashing when shifting into reverse (no synchros there). When i adjusted them, the problem went away.

Balky trannies often respond well to having the car put into neutral, the clutch disengaged, then engaged and shifted into 1st or reverse. What happens is that this action causes the synchro speeds to optimize.

Good luck.

 

It sounds like the 1st gear syncro is damaged. You would have problems engaging other gears at a stop if the clutch is the problem.

I bought a used '93 'Lude years back and a small segment of syncro dog teeth drained out when changing the tranny lube. Months later, after a subsequent hard launch in 1st gear (clutch was fully released, but traction was excellent), the tranny would not engage 1st standing still maybe 1 out of 5 stops. I would have to engage 2nd and then go back into 1st or just start in 2nd gear. I suspect what remained of the syncro deformed during the accel, resulting in the problem.

The syncros consist of cones acting as slip clutches and dog teeth acting as locking clutches. The cones slip a bit to match the speed of the dog teeth on mating gears so they can slip into locking alignment.

 

I had that problem too. After I stop and attempt to go back to 1st, the gear shift seems to get stuck halfway through the shift. The only way I have found to get it to go completely back into 1st is to shift to second while still stopped, then downshift back to first. Then it shifts all the way. Hasn't happened recently, but since I have had the car it happend about 3 or 4 times and my car is relatively new with 5K miles. Also got that horrible grinding sound as well when this happened while I was in motion and downshifting.

 

If you are having any kind of grinding...change out the transmission oil and see if it cures it. My guess is that it will in most cases. If it doesn't, take it in.

 

Road Rage,

I don't think anything has happened to my car causing damage to the shift mechanism. But as you recommend, I'll change out the MTF and see if the problem goes away. I'm really hoping the problem does not need a solution that invloves the dealer tinkering with my car.

Thanks.

 

There was a manufacturing defect in the early VIN 6MTs that led to problems with the transmission popping out of gear:

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67382

An excerpt from my post in that thread:

My dealer discovered the problem on November 11, 2003, while prepping may car for delivery later that day.

About a week later, they opened up the transmission and determined that there was a minor gap in size between one of the gears on the mainshaft and one of the gears on the countershaft in 1st. They replaced that gear with a new gear, but it must have been the same mis-sized gear because the problem came back.

Another week after that a new transmission arrived from Acura and was swapped into the car.

(Since that time, I have 34,000+ miles w/o a tranny problem)

 

Little late but great post! I have a question though. What exactly does " pass through the neutral gate" mean? Im a bit confused here. So am I suppose to let out the clutch alittle with the shifter between neutral and 3? Is that bad?

 

When you shift into any gear, whether up or down, you always pass through the neutral gate. Take a look at your shifter and notice where it's at when you are in neutral. When you are shifting, you move through this point.. the neutral gate. Keep in mind that even though you have your transmission in a state of neutral, the gears in the transmission are in contact and are actually spinning. By blipping the throttle while at the same time letting the clutch out (engage) some in the neutral gate, you are forcing driven and drive gears to much more closely much each others rotational speed. This drastically reduces synchronizer and clutch wear when you finally get into your chosen lower gear and fully engage the clutch.

 

I’m having a similar problem, but I’m not an early VIN….. My 05 6MT has about 3500 miles on it. At the beginning of the day or when ever the car is cold, the first time I shift into third I experience the same type of problem aag12 has – it goes almost all the way, but not all the way in. If I’m not paying attention and I let the clutch out it grinds like a mofo. Normally I just go back into neutral and then it goes into 3rd fine. 1st and 2nd go fine all the time, and 3rd is good after the initial refusal. I am going to wait until I hit 4,000 miles, change the tranny fluid with the GM fluid. If that does not resolve the problem I will make an appointment with the dealer.

aag12 - if you read this (I know this thread is old), did the GM syncromesh fluid clear up your problem?

Thanks,
Chad

 

Southernboy,

Thanks for the help. Also, I tried to send you a PM but your box is full. IF you can please clear it as I have a few more questions.

Thanks!

 

Chadwick02, I have exactly the same problem you do! Third gear can be a bitch sometimes and other times goes in like butter. My shifting isn't the thing that's changing. Let me know if you figure something out about this.

 

The GM Synchromesh Friction Modified (FM) absolutely cleared up my 2nd to 3rd gear balk. Prior to the changeover I had the same symptoms in that if I wasn't paying attention first thing in the morning when the car was cold, I'd sometimes miss the 2/3 shift. It wasn't often, but I always wondered if there was a bit of a problem. Now, the car shifts "like butter" all the time. Actually, butter is the wrong word. The shifting feels very precise and mechanical now. Best shifting in any car I have ever had.

 

To chadwick02 and millerrh;

For both of you... does your clutch begin engagement just off the floor (pedal releases maybe 1.5 inches and then engagement begins)? If this is the case (it was/is with mine), I'm not surprised. The TL has a short clutch pedal travel and an even shorter takeup (the distance the pedal travels from initial engagement to full engagement). This can be a problem for people who are not accustomed to this setup. I can cause stalling, lurching, just a general poor initial engagement process.

And when the transmission is cold, the fluid thickens and can cause some of the problems y'all are seeing. Make sure you depress the pedal all the way to the stop between shifts and yes, consider changing over to GM Synchromesh Friction Modified fluid. Changing the trans fluid on the TL manual is a piece of cake.

 

No, my problem happens even when the clutch is fully depressed. So you think changing to the GM Synchromesh Friction Modified (FM) tranny fluid will solve the problem? I might want to give that a try.

 

Count me in with this problem too. It doesn't happen frequently and it is only for 3rd gear. I had the Acura dealer change out the MTF at 9K miles and for a while it did not happen, but a month later I have experienced this several times already.

If the temperature is the problem, I expect this will worsen as winter arrives. Once it happens regularly, I will either have the dealer take a look and/or put in GM Synchromesh FM.

 

I too have the 3rd gear issue, although it's not related to the car being cold. I can drive the car four hours and still have the problem. Cush Acura in Escondido basically blew me off when I reported it. I'll have to try the GM fluid.

This problem and the stupid door springs really keep me from completely enjoying this car, unfortunately.

 

If any of you make that switch to the GM fluid, please let me know..I'm VERY curious if it fixes it for everyone. I know this is something the dealer isn't gonna do anything about, so I'd like to be able to fix it myself if the fix is as simple as changing the fluid.

 

SouthernBoy: Im sure Im depressing the clutch in all the way. Ive driven 3 acura MTs in my life, and am experianced with their short clutch throw. It sounds like the syncros might not have enough oil on them when I first start up since it only happens once. I will do the GM fluid in a few weeks and update everyone.

 

I drained the factory fill from my manual transmission about 6 weeks ago (around 14.5K miles on my '04 TL). My transmission was never a problem and always shifted smooth and positive... once I became acclimated to the short take up and rather abrupt initial engagement.

However, when I drained the stock fill and took it out into the light to examine it, I thought I was panning for gold, there was so much tiny metal flake in the pan. The GM-SFM takes a few miles to work itself into the tranny, but once it does, you should notice a difference in smoothness and shiftability (not a real word, I know).

I'm going to drain my tranny again at 30,000 miles and then every 30,000 thereafter. I agree that the initial drain should probably take place between 6,000 and 10,000 miles.

It is normal for a manual transmission to sometimes fail to go into a gear. You've started the engine in the morning for you daily drive to work and soon after, you depress the clutch and start to shift into first gear. The shifter doesn't move all the way forward and you know you're not in gear, so you return the shifter to neutral, let out the clutch briefly, then try the shift again. Success and off you go. What happened is the meshing gears didn't quite align properly and the dog teeth did not insert into their respective slots. (does the TL tranny use dog teeth?). Road Rage mentioned that there is the possiblity of a misaligned clutch assembly and there would certainly cause this problem.

Change the fluid and see if that doesn't solve things.