Hey guys, lately I have notices a weird noise when I first start driving my car on colder days. I live in Ohio and this will be my first winter with my Z so I dont know if this is normal. Anyways, its a whining noise when I accelerate or downshift. Once the car warms up however, it doesn't do it anymore. I am worried that there could be a problem. Any help would be awesome. Thanks!

 

i'm having the same problem after they replaced my tranny, it gets worst when the outside temperature is below 40 shifting is very hard in 1st and 2nd, but ill take it back to the dealer in another month when it gets colder, they didnt believe me the last time i took to the dealer the outside temperature was just starting to get warm when i took it back to the dealer, they said nothing is wrong, but this time i'm going to make them fix it.

 

Yea, same here, when its cold it is hard to shift. Let me know what happens!

 

Anyone else have any idea?

 

I whine when it gets cold too.
That's pretty much normal for the car also. Fluids get thicker when they get colder. It's a good idea to let the car warm up some before you drive it whether the tree-huggers like it or not.

 

I'm in Florida and mine does it when its cooler (for us) in the 70's or so. It only does it when the car is in gear for a few minutes then stops. It has been buggin me as of late. My old Integra had a similar issues and it was the lube on the speedo cable that was drying up. I was thinking it was that, but as most of you know it doesn't do it when the car is in neutral.

 

Mine has doon that every winter since i owned it, fluid dynamics, temp etc etc are a *****.

 

so basically, this is normal?

 

??????? are u guys sure this is normal? ive heard a better fuel pump will fix this?

 

its just the fluids bc they are cold and thicker..you can switch to a thinner fluid and itll go away or happen less.. but then again you might end up messing something up idk.. from everything i have gathered its normal.

 

what the world does a fuel pump have to do with hard shifting and a whine when accelerating and decelerating?

do you turn your radio off? are you sure it's not altenator whine in the radio speakers?

It's probably normal transmission whine when first driving a manual transmission vehicle for the day. Every manual transmission vehicle i've owned does it and it's harder to shift when it's cold. I figured that would be obvious to people. cold oil=thick. When you move gears through thick oil it's harder than warm oil.

You can rule out the engine by sitting in place and slowly revving up the engine. If there isn't a whine unless the car is moving then it's not the engine. It's something in the drivetrain.

 

I made this account primarily so I could tell my howling noise experience. I bought my 03 350z in 2012 used with 62000+ miles on it. No problems or concerns what so ever. At 78000+ miles I decided to change out my manual transmission oil with Royal Purple 75W90. About 2 months later I start noticing a low howl when it was cold. I thought my horrible driving had damaged the input shaft main bearing and that plus a bad pilot bearing was causing the input shaft to rock and was damaging the gears. Since then I was planning on driving the car till it got worse and I was planning on replacing the transmission completely when it did. This cold season it got really bad in the morning. My car now has 110000+ I couldn't stand the high pitch scream from the transmission. But this whole time I couldn't help but wonder why it would go away after driving for about 5 miles or when I mashed it hard right away. I couldn't help but think it had to do with oil viscosity. So before I finally ordered the tranny I decided to try changing my tranny oil back to original Nissan 75W85 Oil just to see if the noise would go away and to my amazement it completely went away. No howling what so ever in the mornings anymore. And it was sounding horrible and I mean horrible the day before. When I drained the Royal Purple there wasn't any metal in it so ive decided to let this tranny ride a while longer. To anyone with howling issues in the morning, I would suggest changing your transmission fluid with original Nissan 75w85 manual transmission fluid and see if it doesn't make it better. Worked for me.