The last couple days I have narrowed my 2nd gear notchiness, and the odd semi vibration/grind to be cause by the cold. In the first 2 sets of shifts after leaving in the morning, 2nd is tough to engage or it doesn't make a nice sound when it engages, not a grind though. After that it is smooth.

Yesterday, I think it was 50F or 12C and the tranny at mid day was silk, the car never felt so good. Damn, why can't I live in Cali.

How long do you guys leave your car to warm up before leaving, when the weather is near freezing? 32F or 0C

 

Typically, I start the car and let it idle in neutral while I put on the seatbelts, adjust the radio for the right station, and in all ways settle in for the daily commute. This little bit of idling (one minute??) seems to do a decent enough job of taking out that 2nd gear notchiness for me. YMMV.

 

FormerH22a4 :

I have an 02' as well and have the exact symptom. I am not too concerned about it however. It seems the first couple of shifts into second gear just need a bit more conviction. I do plan to use redline tranny oil when the time comes...but that's not for quite a while.

 

Living in Chicago your cold weather looks kind of nice. I find that the engine warms to three bars in about 5 minutes, up to 10 in really cold weather. The tranny however general takes upwards of 15 minute to warm up enough to be really smooth. Also, the tranny takes a lot longer if I drive the car at low RPM. If I really want to have fun and row the gears I give the car a good 15 minutes of warm up and then most if not all the notchiness is gone.

Oh, almost every car manufacturer discourages warming the car up parked in idle. This is when a large part of the wear on an engine occurs. You are better off starting and driving away and keeping the rpm below 5k till it warms up.

Hugh

 

On really cold days, we have frost and ice on the windows. I let it warm up as long as it takes for me to scrape all the windows. On those rare occasions when the windows don't need scraping (like sitting out in a sunny day), even at -25*C, I only let it warm up for about 2-3 minutes (while I put on my seat belt, adjust my music, put my club away, etc). The first 2-3 km, the tranny is stiff but this is no different that any other manual car where I live. You get used to the "notchiness" and in time, you'll learn how to shift just differently enough during this initial warm up time that it is no longer an issue. The bad thing is that the cold issues may "hide" a genuine tranny problem that needs to be fixed. It might not be a bad idea to check the tranny fluid level if yours doesn't "smarten" up once it's warmed up. I've seen tranny levels on cars just new from the dealer that have been 2-500 cc too low.

 

I took a drive with xviper and determined that my 2nd gear notchiness is because I shift too slow

I am a new MT owner so as to prevent grinding I only move the knob only after the clutch has been fully depressed. This in turn slows down the car too much and the road speed and engine speed feel out of the optimum range and I get a minor clunking. Now on to working out the 3rd gear notch

I don't know if this is related to the cold 2nd gear issues though. We'll have to see.

 

I don't know if this helps, but on a recent road test of the $90K NSX, Motor Week said it was notchy; so, at 1/3rd the price what would expect! And, they were not even in Canada.

 

perhaps I expect too much.

 

I had the same cold shift problems. I started leaving the car parked in reverse and the crunchyness went away.

 

I have the same symptoms. my car does not like to go into any gear when it is cold, sometime I have to give it a good tug to get into 2nd.. but once its warm, I have no problems at all.. Im in Michigan by the way, so it can get pretty cold here