When i am getting on the throttle, going to redline, I have to slam the gearbox into 2nd, or else it misses. Is this normal or is there something wrong here? I had my dealer look at my tranny, but I am a bit scared to tell them it only happens when I am running the car hard.

 

Not happening here... I have trouble getting into low gears when I first start up, (1st and R) but I havn't missed a gear yet (1208 miles). Ask Nissan about it...

Also, make sure your fully depressing the clutch when shifting.

 

While not going at WOT, I have had occasions where I needed to push the shifter into 2nd with a little more attention and vigilance because of the select few times where I swear it gets engaged, but somehow ends up in neutral. Typically in the mornings, the few times that it happens (RPMs shoot up). I guess I don't 'slam' into 2nd, but I am a little more forceful.

 

hmmm is this normal for a sports car ?

 

I've noticed that the 1st to 2nd shift is not as smooth as the other shifts. I rarely shift from 2nd to 1st but I suspect that the gears for the 1st and 2nd might be a lot beefier than the others because of all the torque and usage that they go through.

I've spoken about this w/ another 350Z owner and he confirms that he experiences the same feel. I've had my Z for over a year but I only really started to notice it in the past few month.

 

I have missed a few 1st to 2nd gear shifts due to being " locked out ". My first time was while racing a local G35 which was quite embarrasing. I have brought my car in for the cold grind shifting into 2nd and ocassionally 3rd but they couldn't reproduce it of course. Hopefully Nissan will come our with a new generation tranny that's not notchy nor does it grind when cold.


Yielar

 

I finally broke my Z in and I've noticed that shifting from 1st to 2nd is pretty tough 50% of the time. I have to shove it into gear. The rest of the time it goes in fairly easily or it just slides in smoothly like silk.

Shifting from 2nd to 1st is a pain 80% of the time. I swear I have to push with twice as much force as it takes to get into second when that gear is stiff.

Other than that I'm happy with the car.

 

yeah 2nd is tough to get into sometimes. i also get locked out a couple times when driving hard. but my friend told me, after reading the G35 forums, that it was because the syncro's are a bit slow... not sure if its true tho

 

I'd be interested to hear whether any 350Z owners have noticed an improvement of the 2nd gear resistance by replacing the tranny oil with Redline MT90 or something similar. I know it worked wonders in my 5-sp Maxima and Redline talks a lot about synchros in their ads about their tranny oil.

 

For me, getting into 2nd gear is the hardest when cold, things get better when the car is warmed up where I can actually "finger-shift" from 1st to 2nd a lot easier.

Downshifting from 2nd to 1st is hard only when the car is still moving. I have been told by my friends to never downshift into 1st unless the car is fully stopped, so that is what I do.

 

does this seem like an issue that should be corrected with a tranny swap by the dealer ? or is this considered normal? i was told that there is nothing wrong with my car by my service manager

 

My 1-2 shifts were 20% like butter and the rest of the time it was a near grind. There was no rhyme or reason to the behavior except that it was impossible to get a good shift when the gear oil was cold.

I absolutely had to double-clutch and rev-match to downshift into second gear ALL THE TIME or it would grind on me.

Everytime I brought it up to the dealer, they told me "could not replicate problem" or that the behavior was "normal".

Every car I've ever owned has been a manual and I'm pretty good with them. I've autocrossed and drag raced half of my cars and the only time I ever had problems like that was when my '92 Mitsu VR-4's second gear synchro started going bad.

The 1-2 and 3-2 synchromesh in the Z is REALLY touchy. It did seem to upshift better when I ran the RPMs up a bit, but that might have just been coincidental. When it shifted properly, it was like a bolt-action rifle (very precise and like butter). So, I know that there was a proper way for it to work. It just rarely did work that way.

I don't know if the newer trannies work better but my '03 was made in 11/02 and had the original transmission from the factory at that date.

 

the 1-2 shift is definately hard under WOT. I just missed the 1-2 shift twice before i got home! I hadn't missed a shift yet in this car (7k). I don't know if this is normal or if i should try to push the dealer to swap my tranny for the newest model.

 

when i pound the 1 2 shift it does it. and it's rifle bolt otherwise. i hope i'm lucky and got a good one. i will be at he dealer if it changes for the worse.