6spd not shifting into 3rd, 4th, 5th

my 6spd 2010 Box S has about 9K miles never raced or tracked. now this is a strange one: driving home from work last night, car would not shift from 2nd to 3rd, or once moving from neutral to 4th or 5th. I could “crunch” it into 3rd, but didn’t. my tranny has always been silky smooth. During drive home, the car also had a weird lumpy idle (up and down 200 rpms) while stopped at a red light (weird one, since idle would seem unrelated to tranny issues). I nursed it home in 2nd gear (Chicago side streets) and went to bed hoping it was nothing. got up this morning, car shifted fine while stopped in my garage, but drove to work and same thing happened; can't upshift from 2nd to 3rd under regular acceleration (think shift light indication). I call the 1800 porsche number to get it towed to the dealer. Car gets there today and what happens: of course, “unable to replicate.” Anyone have any idea how: 1) this could happen and 2) the dealer not been able to replicate? As an aside, got told about a new recall announced today for our cars (at least like mine, Gen II S models) involving the fuel pump. EDIT: the recall is on Gen II Fuel Pumps

Well standard issues with manual gearboxes are linkage i.e. cables or the clutch. The linkage is pure mechanical so once the problem occurs it is highly unlikely it will simply disappear. Clutch is a more likely candidate and maybe fluid issue causing the clutch not to disengage properly. Looking at the nasty end of the scale it could also be an internal gearbox fault, but until the fault comes and stays it will be difficult to determine anything.

Take it to a different dealer or go on a test drive with the dealer service person. Maybe all they did was sit in the car with it still like you did in your garage and it shifted fine, if they didn't drive it, maybe they weren't running into the problem. I would certainly get it looked at again.

I brought my car into the dealer (Steven's Creek Porsche ) yesterday to have them check the clicking sound I hear from the shifter. They told me that they tested and there was nothing wrong. They sure had tested. I found that my MPG meter dropped A LOT for the few miles they drove the car

got car back tonight. it drives perfect, just like it always did. no idea what happened, but I know it would not shift into 3rd on 2 separate days. very very odd. it can't be tranny related because it works perfectly now, shifting smoothly on all gears. perhaps there was a temporary issue with the clutch, but at 9K miles in the ODO, also seems odd. it shall remain a mystery . at least now it's on their system in case something does happen in the future. they also changed my fuel pump per the new recall.

Bringing this thread back from the dead. I had this same issue again. I had forgotten about this thread (came up on a google search -- HA!). My car now has ~34,000 miles on it. I posted on a different thread my recent similar issues and the belief that may be was related to the clutch or the hydraulics. http://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman-...nd-boxster-chat/184761-bleeding-clutch-987-2-factory-procedure.html#post1778954 . I took the car to the dealer in Skokie that had given me a competitive quote (about $2,600) to put a new clutch kit and a new slave master cylinder. They looked/drove the car today, and tell me, without dropping the transmission, that the car needs a new transmission. We are talking big numbers here, $6,000 or so for new transmission plus about $1200+ in labor to install it. A very reputable Porsche indy/race shop in Bensenville IL gave me basically the same quote for a new tranny. It also appears that a rebuild at the indy shop (dealer wont do it) will cost close to $5,000 broken up evenly between labor and gears/parts -- so not really worth it (indy said not to do it and go with new one if needed). The question is, how come my car have done this seven years ago when it had 9,000 miles, driven perfectly fine for or seven years, and then reappear again? What could be going on here? is it the tranny? or the hydraulics/pressure plate? And the 64,000 question is whether I should go ahead an do the originally contemplated work (clutch friction disc, pressure place, throwout bearing, and clutch slave cylinder) for about $2600 to see if that will solve it first, OR should I go for the whole enchilada...meaning do the originally contemplated work PLUS the new tranny off the bat? doing the former will add about $1200 in labor costs if I had to later change the tranny if problems persist.... but, if tranny is fine after original work, then saved $7.5K... If it is some sort of defective tranny issue, previously documented with similar issues at 9K miles and less than 2 year old car under warranty), I wonder if PCNA would help a bit (I doubt it..i'm a 8 yr old car come this March). Any input/ thoughts appreciated. thanks. :cheers:

It's hard to believe the transmission gave up. I suspect you're dealing with clutch or shift linkage issues, not transmission issues. I'd go with transmission removal and linkage/clutch inspection. That should be a major step in confirming just what you're dealing with. Good luck and please keep us posted.

Agree with Budman. Linkage problem sounds likely to me. Plus as a preliminary check, you can raise the car, disconnect the shift cables, and then try to shift into all gears by hand. Pulling in/out on the rod is the same as going across the "H", and rotation CW/CCW is the same as going front to back on the shift lever. This won't help to diagnose any synchro issues, but it will at least tell you if something major (like a fork) is damaged. Good luck!

thanks all. to clarify, the car shifts fine when off or when shifting from neutral and stationary. it's when moving that the shift to 3-4-5 becomes hard unless double clutching (and this is a recent re occurrence from the weird issue 7 year ago). the car had new OEM shift cables replaced summer 2016 as they old ones snapped off (whole different thread here on it). I've told the dealer to drop tranny to do visual or bell housing, pressure plate, shaft, bearings, etc. and report back. I'll go look at it as well as dealer is cool with that, knowing that I lots of wrenching on the car. After that, I'll have to decide to just replace slave and clutch kit, and put it all back together for test run, or go for the whole thing. it will be a $1700 bet as that's the labor cost quoted to drop/lift tranny again to replace it if needed. i'll keep folks updated...

This is very odd. For synchros, the lower gears usually wear out first, so I doubt it's that. Plus I don't believe 3 synchros would all fail at the same time. So again we're looking at cable adjustment or linkage. Another thought just occurred to me: I wonder if an engine or tranny mount has gone south. If the power train is twisting on/off torque, that could move the cable enough to throw it out of adjustment. Worth checking while it's on the lift.

updating.... went to dealer to look a things and meet with their master tech (Rich). the flywheel is shot...its moving way more than the 16mm of play allowed, and it is not recentering by itself when twisting the flywheel. there is also a ring of grease inside the tranny bell housing that their master tech said its from the flywheel. but otherwise no oil or other fluids from the engine itself (RMS seal, etc) in the bellhousing. The next step is for them to drain the fluid of the transmission to see if there's any metal shavings in it. If there are metal shavings, then the Tech will be 100% convinced that I need a new transmission. If there are no metal shavings, then we are back to square one.... In deciding whether to just replace flywheel, pressure plate and clutch disc, and's slave cylinder and see how it goes. If not, spend another $1700 in labor afterwards to take transmission down again and install new one if those repairs not fix the condition (plus of course $6.5K cost of new tranny). so we are talking about spending 4K now, or an additional 9K later...ugh.

Man, this is a weird problem. The only other thing I can think of is maybe the bad flywheel was causing the clutch to not fully disengage, and that that was causing the shifting problems while moving. Hard to troubleshoot that with the car disassembled, though. Did you notice any grinding while shifting into reverse while this problem was happening? That would be a hint on a not-disengaged clutch.