Sometimes I can feel gears when shifting, typically into second or into third. Not much, and maybe I'm just feeling the synchro. I'm not talking about gear jamming here, just a little feel. Sometimes it's as smooth as silk, sometimes a little 'klak'. (No noise, just feel).

Is it normal to feel that little "snik" when shifting? Should I double clutch on every shift to try and avoid it?

--skybolt

 

I got that same exact feeling in my car. Sometimes it goes in smooth and other times it;s kinda of rough. The gears aren't grinding. It happens the most in third gear.
I think its normal

 

It also has to do with your transmission temp. I notice this when its cold out and I just started driving. it goes away as things warm up.

 

But is it *bad?* I'd hate to think I was causing damage to the geat teeth with every shift I feel this on.

 

It is normal, it is not bad. Grinding gears will wear on the teeth of the gears and the synchros, but the little "clunk" that I regularly feel does no harm to the transmission.

 

Thanks!

I suppose rebuilding the tranny to take care of the nicked gears is better than replacing it. Now that I've been paying more attention to transmission feel, I've noticed it on the even numbered gears as well. The key difference is hand position, the 'feel' is much more pronounced when pushing up into a gear, as opposed to pulling down.

-skybolt

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by skybolt
[B]Sometimes I can feel gears when shifting, typically into second or into third. Not much, and maybe I'm just feeling the synchro. I'm not talking about gear jamming here, just a little feel. Sometimes it's as smooth as silk, sometimes a little 'klak'. (No noise, just feel).

 

Please post the followup -- I have an '02 as well. (Mine is also black, good to see you have the same good taste!)

 

Well, Honda drained the transmission fluid through a fine sieve, and there were NO shavings in it.

The bad news is the notchiness is still there.

The good news is refilling it with new Honda MTF made it feel better once it was completely warmed up. This makes me think that many of the posts that swear by lubricants other than Honda MTF deserve more credibility than I've given them so far. (I failed to post to the "obsessive behavior" thread that I keep the car 100% OEM and ADM -- American domestic market -- so filling the transmission with anything other than Honda MTF is anathema to me.)

Also good news is that the occasional outright grind -- which I also have occasionally during high-rev fast shifts -- isn't apparently grinding stuff off the transmission. I've had about six of those episodes in 9K miles, and since the drained fluid was clean it means I didn't damage the transmission.

So, if you have the grind/notchiness problem, you might ask the service manager to do the same test mine did. It takes about 20 minutes and a quart of Honda MTF. In short, no sweat off their backs.

 

Good point there. My shifting also became slightly smoother at 30k miles when they yanked the transmission to fix a popping out of fourth-problem, and replaced the transmission fluid.