Rep Power: 424

I seriously have no idea what the hell is going on, but heres the best description I can give....

The shifter does not just fall right into gear like it should. It used to feel exactly the same with the car on or off (the transmission not spinning at all vs, the tranny shaft rotating). It was butter smooth. Now I find myself smacking the shifter around trying to make it shift if it is running at any useful RPM. But if I let it go back down to idle between shifts, it shifts fine. It makes a clunk noise when it falls into gear and the lever drops into the gate very hard. When it was shifting right, I could shift with my pinky. Now I really have to push it into gear. It's almost like forcing it through a lockout to get it in gear, and when it does go in, it slams in. So basically I get something like this...
Gas.........Clutch, Clunk (with snap feeling), Gas.......
The car has already been in 3 times in the last 2 months for **** with the clutch hydraulic system, but I don't think this is clutch related unless the clutch isn't disengaging.
Does anyone have any idea or had something to this effect happen to them? I'm wondering if it's just normal as the car racks up miles for the shifting to get a little stickier or if something is messed up. I think I'm going to go up to the dealer and drive a brand new one to see if it feels smoother. That may be the best way to find a problem.

 
Rep Power: 310

Hrmm.. well mine after two weeks started to take more effort to shift and became more notchy feeling, though it still works just not as smooth and as easy. I think this is normal, not sure. Comparing to a new car might not be a good test.

It sounds like your synchros are going bad or your clutch is out of adjustment. I'm saying this though without ever seeing a Honda tranny manual or having any first hand experience working on one. But if its like a typical tranny, then it coud be synchro or clutch related. When the dealer worked on your tranny did they also change the oil? Or has that already been done recently? Does the pedal feel any different? Hopefully its something simple that a fluid change would fix or perhaps bleeding air out of the clutch line...

 
Rep Power: 424

If you're referring to motor oil, it was changed last week. If you mean hydraulic oil, I don't know if it was changed there's just under 14K on the car but I do know the line was bled 3 weeks ago when it was last in there. For what ever reason, every time they adjust it, it lasts 3-5 weeks then goes bad again. I'm beginning to think that all this time that something has been messed up and it has been beating on other parts in the system. Since the dealer looks for the easy way out and just finds the surface fixes (they love greasing and praying it goes away) rather than throughly going through the system to check on other things that may be causing the sticky feeling they just look at one thing, it stops for a little bit and then comes back.

 
Rep Power: 310

No, I'm referring to the tranny oil. So what was the problems you had before? I wonder if you get it bleeded again if it would fix it temporarily. If it does then I would guess that you have some type of seal problem thats letting air back into the hydraulid system.

 
Rep Power: 0

As soon as I get me car back from the dealership I'll post the service bulliten number for the shifting problem. Although be prepared for them to have your car for awhile. I'm going on day 9.

 
Rep Power: 310

Boilermaker1,

You might be able to claim this under the Lemon Laws for your state. Here in California it goes sumptin like this:

A new car is a "lemon" under the law if it has a problem that:

- is covered by warranty, AND
- substantially reduces the car's use, value, or safety, AND
- cannot be repaired after a "reasonable" number of attempts.

Most manufacturers provide arbitration programs that attempt to resolve warranty at no cost, as an alternative to court.

This is what is says on the back of the envelope that my license plates came in. Now I realize your not all from California, but I bet your state has something similar.

EDIT: Texas Lemon Laws..

Looks like you might be getting some lemon-aid soon.. hehe

 
Rep Power: 424

I'm gonna give Honda one more try... I'm going to SoCal next week, so I'm going to drop off my car on the 26th, they can have it until Jan 3. That's a week. They can tear down anything they think may be causing the problem in the drivetrain AS LONG AS IT WORKS RIGHT when I get it back. I do not want to be going to the dealer every 3 weeks for the rest of the life of the car... it's getting rediculous. Believe me, if I thought I could lemon it... I'd have a 6-speed Maxima on order already. Unfortunately I'm sure someone along the way will say this is a "minor problem" that can't be lemoned... we'll see.
Oh BTW: I drove a few Civics owned by people I know from work... None of them felt "notchy". I drove a 01 LX, a 99 EX, and a 95 DX (with over 110K) and all 3 were absolutely butter smooth. Meanwhile I let one of them drive mine (the guy with the 95 DX) as well as one of my friends who has never driven a Civic before and both agreed something was not right.

 
Rep Power: 0

While this sounds stupid...I read it in another thread. Is your floor mat under the clutch pedal? If it is...maybe the clutch isn't going down all the way?

 
Rep Power: 424

Nah... it isn't the floor mat. I just got back from the dealer and the service manager agrees it's a bit sticky. I'm going to bring it in next thursday (need my car till then) and they're going to take apart the console and make sure the cables are ok (checking for snags and stuff) then they're going to drain the tranny fluid and make sure that nothing's floating around in there that shouldn't be. So that's where it stands right now.... probably yet another stupid little thing.

 
Rep Power: 424

Just to finish this one off....
I went in to the dealer today. They checked the cables and apparently the spray lube they use on the cables is a dirt magnet. So driving through all the salt, sand and other **** gunked up the cables. They cleaned it off. They also re-packed the bearing for the mechanism that engages the throw-out bearing with all weather grease (the stuff they used a few weeks ago was apparently not suited for cold weather). So it is working properly now... no notchyness for now.

 
Rep Power: 310

Good to hear its fixed.. well atleast for now. Got any pics of what parts they re-greased? It'd be nice to know incase we have to do it ouselves.. no worries thx.

 
Rep Power: 0

I had the same problem because of road salt around here..de greased and re-lubricated the cables for free..and I switched to Amsoil synthetic MTF.. it now hshifts much smoother than it originally did..