Hey everyone,
I heard this was a common problem with the AP1s. How many have had this problem and what are you expierences on having this fixed. I have taken my car to Honda 2 times and they cant duplicate the problem. It doesnt happen all the time, only when i get on it hard. I am not a bad driver and a dont grind gears. i have it under warranty for another 8K so i want to get this done soon. Honda told me that they will take the tranny apart to find the problem but if they cant find a problem i need to pay the labor...$600+. what do you guys think i should do?

 

Mine used to grind going into 5th everytime... Just go from 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th casually for a few days and it will fix itself... That's what happened for me. I had to re-syncro the gears or something. I don't know what the heck I did but it grinded no matter what. I used to skip gears so that's what I think did it. But like I said, I just drove it around for a while going from each gear to the next without skipping and it fixed my problem. If you don't skip gears though than I'm not sure what to say

 

Find out what conditions (i.e. what rpm) cause the grind. I found just above 7000rpm was the sweet spot. Ride in the car with the mecahanic driving. That way they can't deny the problem.

 

Thanks i will do that. Its just doesnt happen all the time. And yes its about 7000RPM or higher about. sometimes it acts up a lot in a couple day period or it wont grind for like a week or so. its really weird.

 

Change the trans fluid with new Honda MTF. Its the easiest thing to do. it might help.

 

My first to second doesn't grind but feels "notchy". Doesn't feel normal nevertheless. It actually became more pronounced after I changed the tranny fluid at 15K miles (used Honda MTF)
Also has a lot to do with RPMs and fluid temp.
You could always try the Synchromesh.

 

I had this the first couple years I had my car. My dealer couldn't duplicate it either but I complained and wrote to Honda and the dealer changed the first 3 gears and synchros for me. Now two years later and still no grind so if they are taking apart your tranny, might as well replace the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears and synchros.

If you don't grind everyday, they will not be able to spot the cause, the gears and sychros will look fine, they are probably out of tolerance that is all.

 

I noticed that when I shift from 1st to 2nd with the palm of my hand almost facing forward (just rotate your hand to the left a bit) there is absolutely no gear grind and the tranny makes this beautiful ''click'' sound and I can feel everything is very smooth.

For shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear whenever I use my entire hand for grabbing the shift knob I can hear and feel some grinding. But when I just use my thumb and flick it into 3rd gear it's very smooth and 0 grinding.

May sound stupid but in my case the way I hold the shift knob affects my gear grind!

 

I have changed the dif and tranny fluid and it still grinds. i am wondering if the previous owner learned how to drive a stick with this car. haha

 

I am correcting myself...my "notchiness" is from 2nd to 3d.