Ok, made sure I did a search for this to see if it was a problem that had been addressed and no symptoms quite matched mine so here goes:

When at a dead stop and my car is on, engine running it is hard as hell for me for me to pull my shifter into gear.... especially into reverse. When moving it is hard to shift but not near as hard as when at a dead stop. When the car is off and parked, I can easily shift into any gear. Also it seems like my clutch has too much freeplay at the top. My 02 has 60k on it. Any ideas? Suggestions? Experience? YOur help is much appreciated in advance.

 

Try changing the trans fluid.

 

Im thinking its more a clutch engagement problem.... not sure its a transmission problem. Any other ideas?

 

did this seem to happen kind of all at once, or has it been a gradual process?

 

It really seemed to happen all at once. Just one day leaving for work it was a pain in the butt to put it in reverse and get it out of the garage, and has been that way since

 

here u go.

https://www.s2ki.com/stor/library/TSB/A02-046/index.htm

fixed my problems

 

the reason i ask, is i had a similar problem, that seemed to happen overnight.
PITA to get into any gear with the car running, and the higher the speed, the harder engagement became.

my problem (as correctly, indcredibly enough, diagnosed by my mechanic) was a piece of the friction disc had broken off and lodged itself between the pressure plate and the friction disc, keeping the clutch basically somewhat engaged all the time when the engine was running. here's what she looked like:

what the clutch should look like from the side


what this side of mine looked like, because...


this piece broke off and got lodged...


between the friction disc and the pressure plate. if you look closely, you can see the groove in the PP from the little piece being lodged there.


didn't help that at 135k, my FD was...almost gone


new clutch and i'm good to go

 

few things you can try.

bleed clutch system
readjust clutch rod
change tranny fluid

otherwise, clutch could be at the end of its life....or something is broken.

 

I'm going to revive this thread because what the OP posted is exactly what I'm currently experiencing. I have a MY07 with ~45,000 miles. From reading this thread, it sounds like a tranny fluid change would be a good place to start, but has anyone else experienced this? My problem seemed to happen gradually over the past few months.

Just making a note...at times if I pump the clutch pedal, it gets easier to shift. and my pedal has a bunch of free play at the top that wasn't there before...

 

look inside the car at the back of the pedal where it goes into the master cylinder, if its wet with fluid you have a bad master and need to replace it, how is your fluid level in the reservoir??