Why hard gear changes??

Like many others, my car suffers with stiff/notchy gearchange when cold. In looking through the various threads on gearbox oil, I find that most seem to have this problem and in general, changing the std oil to something else doesn't really do much to cure the problem. So, my simple question is.........WHY does such an expensive and well engineered car have such a crap gearbox operation when cold!!??

The first time I changed my trans oil I went from Porsche oil to Mobil Delvec. It made cold shifts, especially 1 -2 shifts, very hard. Changing from Mobil Delvac to Motul 300 made a large difference in shift effort, easier, with a cold trans. My next change will be back to Porsche supplied oil. Approved Manual Transmission Oils 000 043 204 20 Mobil (Mobilube PTX) - 20 liter container 000 043 204 19 Shell (Transaxle) - 20 liter container 999 917 546 00 Shell (Transaxle) - 1 liter container

Do you have a short shift kit installed?

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Nope, entire car is as it left the factory and the question I have really relates to the engineering design of the box. Why has it been designed to be so notchy and hard to change gear when cold? There appears to be many owners who have this problem........why would the box be designed this way.......were they like that from new???

What are the miles on the car? What fluid is in the transmission now? BTW, I have found cold shifting a bit difficult -- not intolerably so though -- with all my manual transmission equipped cars, from my 510 Datsun, '89 Tempo, '96 Mustang, '01 Camaro, '02 Boxster, '02 VW Golf, '06 GTO, '08 Cayman S, and '03 Turbo. I have to point out you are moving gears into/out of engagement. Gears in a transmission that can withstand the forces required to launch a 3400lb car from a dead stop to 60mph in under 6 seconds without spewing transmission parts all over the pavement. That it takes a bit of effort to shift gears when the transmission is cold is to be expected. IOWs, you wanted a manual transmission in order to more fully immerse yourself in the car driving experience and yet you complain about a bit of shifting effort when the transmission is cold. If you are unsure of what fluid is in the transmission, or how long it has been there, my advice would be to schedule the car in for a transmission fluid change. My experience with my Boxster is Porsche fluid seems to make shifting when cold a bit more work shifting when hot is smooth. The time another fluid was used -- I do not know what fluid -- while shifting cold was a bit smoother shifting hot was not as smooth. Since this early experience with different transmission fluids I have elected to always use the Porsche fluid. Anyhow, and this is important too, at the same time have the brake fluid and clutch fluid flushed/bled. Do not dismiss this. A while back my Boxster's shifting was becoming more difficult to do smoothly even when warmed up. It was like I wasn't fully depressing the clutch pedal. Of course, I then took extra effort to make sure I did this but to no avail. Also, I was finding it difficult to move the car from a stop smoothly no matter how hard I tried to be smooth with the clutch. At around 275K miles I kind of suspected that maybe in spite of the regular fluid changes (around every 60K miles) the transmission was wearing out and that the original clutch was finally due to be replaced. The transmission fluid was reasonably fresh, but the SM at the dealer looked up the car's service records and found the last brake/clutch fluid flush/bleed was done about 2.5 years earlier. I booked the car in for this and while afterwards the brake action was unaffected -- it was fine before the fluid service -- the clutch action was much improved and the shifting difficulties were gone.

I agree that far too many people (service tech's as well) over look the need to include the clutch flush during a brake flush. This should be done every time you complete a full fluid flush on the brake system.

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It has 86k on it......new clutch/flywheel/slave cylinder/IMS/RMS/AOS about a year ago.....all work done by dealer......box oil changed about 3 months ago, again, dealer. As you say, it's better when warmed up. If this was any other car I'd have thought there was something wrong with the box. Aint complainin' just asking why build an expensive car that needs to have the box warmed up before changing gear is worth a crap! Maybe it's a built-in restriction so the driver can't hammer the car before it's ready to go. I'm just saying that it can't be beyond the realms of good engineering to build a manual box that works well, hot or cold.......and I'd be interested to know why they build it this way........are the early/later cars the same?

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As I covered in my first post my experience is all manual transmissions shift slower when cold. My opinion it is good engineering that delivers a transmission that delivers a long service life and manages to deliver acceptable shifting speed throughout this service life. Since 99% of the time shifting is done with the tranny warm if this means the tranny is a bit slower to shift when cold but manages to shift quick when hot and doesn't wear out or otherwise act up that's an acceptable trade off in my opinion. Or IOWs, good engineering. Furthermore since when the transmission and engine are cold I'm in no real hurry to shift quickly. The fact the transmission shifts a bit slower when cold helps reinforce the thinking that I want to drive the car gentle until it is warmed up. Given the dynamics of the situation I'm not sure the transmission could be designed to shift at the same speed cold as when warm. Well, not in an affordable way. What I found helps is after starting the engine from cold -- this is from say the car sitting out all night -- is to before driving away shift into each gear. This helps for some reason. It won't make the cold shifting as fast as it is warm but it makes the transmission a bit less reluctant to shift when cold.

The car's optimized to work when it's warmed up. We live with the reluctant 1st-gear downshifts, chain tensioner rattles, and sloppy cold handling and braking because it all works so well together when things get heated up.

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Thank you Mac.......all makes sense. I also have tried going through the gears before driving off from cold. As you say, helps a little, not much. My car lives in a roughly 70F garage so my experience of it is largely from that standpoint. When parked out all night (few times) it feels kinda the same. I once thought it might be something to do with the oil not circulating fully but that would lead to extremely quick failures, so dumped that idea. As another poster mentions, the whole car it works very well when fully warmed up and made that way........"small price to pay" is right. Thanks for the insights all.

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I disagree with most of this. I think the transmission in these cars was an afterthought and there is a LOT of room for improvement. Go drive a Honda S2000 and then get back to me about how a properly engineered transmission should feel. That said, I'd still rather have my 911 than an S2000.

A Honda S2000 is relatively-speaking very easy on a transmission since it is torque that kills transmissions. 165lb.ft @ 6,500RPM max? That's less than a Toyota Camry. Therefore Honda can make it out of lighter components and still hold up to the engine's stock power output. I am sure a Miata transmission is really good when cold too... Dan

Another thing to look into. I had a problem with notchy gear shifting (specially when cold) but then also experienced when shifting from 2nd to 3rd a couple of times where the gear box wouldn't shift into any gear except 2nd. it felt like it just was sloppy and not engaging in any gear track. A couple of people on this site informed me that it was most likely a bad clip where the shift cables go into the transmission, which it was. Once replaced, this hard shifting basically went away. It seems that the cables can get slightly out of place and makes the slots for shifting difficult at times.