Won't Shift Smooth From 5th to Anything but 6th
 

My '03 6-speed has this problem. When I shift into 5th and then try to go down to anything else it won't. It is like the shifter is stuck in neutral below 5th until I move the shifter to the right and it pops a little and then it will go any where. If I go from 5th to 6th it is always smooth.

Why would I have to move the shifter to the right in neutral to get it to go into another gear? It is real annoying when I'm trying to come to a light and I can't get the car in gear quick to slow down.

Any ideas? I have 58k miles and should be inside the 60k mile warranty.

Not really sure... I have a problem with mine also. Well sorta. I can upshift fine 1-6 and downshift fine from everything except 6th-5th. Most of the time when I downshift from 6th-5th I get a sorta "grind" sorta sound. If I shift it slow it doesn't do it but it's pretty annoying having to shift slow so it doesn't. I mean it still goes into 5th it just give's a lil grind sorta sound which I know can't be possibly good. I'm not really sure if it's the clutch either cause I figure it would do it in every gear. Maybe my tranny (I pray it isn't)... anyways dunno if this is exactly what your talking about. Sounds like your issue might be a lil different... but if anyone's experienced anything like this feel free to share the knowledge.

Mine is more like if I try to move it from 5th to anything other than 6th it locks it and it won't let it move over without me moving the shifter to the right until it pops a little then it will go. It may be something designed so you can't go from 5th to 4th accidently.