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Hello, I have just changed cars from:
a Ford Focus MKI 2000 – 1.8 Petrol – 5 Speed Manual Transmission 66,000 miles, to:
a Honda Civic Type S 2009 – 2.2 I-CDTI – 6 Speed Manual Transmission 76,000 miles with apparent full service history, most recent within last 2000 miles/6 months.
I really like the car but the jerkiness of gear changes from 1st to 2nd particularly, and sometimes 2nd to 3rd is really taking a shine off it for me. I wasn’t sure what to expect going from a petrol engine to a diesel engine (knowing a petrol engine is more “refined”) I thought I just needed to get used to the car, couple of weeks later no matter how hard I try, I find it difficult to shift those gears smoothly, and always feel the car judder coming back off the clutch going into 2nd especially. Worth noting that shifts from 3rd to 4th, 4th to 5th and 5th to 6 feel fine and downward shifts seem fine. It is mainly 1st to 2nd.
It doesn’t feel like anything is wrong with the box or the clutch mind you.
Having looked into Eric’s video’s and hearing his experience my first thought is to change the transmission fluid (using Honda fluid)
We are in the cold winter months here in England and need more experience of the car to determine if this eases up when the car has warmed up some, which I believe could indicate a fluid issue.
One thing I have noticed about the car which I feel may be contributing is the cars ability to “coast” – when I come off the throttle in first gear, the car does not coast along anything like my old Focus did. The slow down (or engine braking) is that much more apparent. I’ve checked the tyre pressure’s which seem ok so am not sure if this is due to the car being heavier or perhaps going from 15″ wheels to 17″ changes rolling resistance. In general in any gear the car does not coast off throttle as well as the Focus does and loses speed a lot quicker.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Brian
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But still putting something like one liter/quart of extra fluid will make many manual transmissions last longer. In some manual transmissions if you don’t “overfill” them you shouldn’t tow trailer with 5th gear. But this isn’t because engineers don’t know what they are doing but because fuel consumption (less oil in gearbox less drag) is more important to them than lifetime of gearbox (which is good at manufacturers perspective anyway).
Changed the oil now for Honda MTF-3, as Eric said better to assume they’ve also used the wrong oil.
Taking all that excess out had helped, and when I came to change it this time about another half litre extra came out so it was still overfilled, or some could not drain first time around. Car was level both times and was probably warmer first time I drained it.
Anyway,
Only done about 20 miles with the new Honda oil and already noticing the difference. Mainly the cars ability to creep about at low speed in first gear. Previously the car didn’t like it at all and was what I can only describe as “Surgey” (as in Power Surge)
The power delivery seems a lot smoother and refined in first gear and it’s helped with the coasting and severe engine braking symptoms it felt like I was getting.As for gear changes these are better especially downshifting, but hoping there is more improvement to come.
Any idea’s how long it will take to completely run in? I don’t know why but I had about 100 miles in my head, I may have just dreamt that though!
Thanks for everyone’s input on this, if any further significant improvement comes about I’ll keep you guys posted. Cheers!
I’m VERY happy to hear you changed the fluid. As you can already see, things are better. As for how long it will take to work in, perhaps a couple of weeks or so. Now that things are working better it sounds like you’re on the right path. Thanks for the updates and keep us posted if things change.
[quote=”valde” post=91265]But still putting something like one liter/quart of extra fluid will make many manual transmissions last longer. In some manual transmissions if you don’t “overfill” them you shouldn’t tow trailer with 5th gear. But this isn’t because engineers don’t know what they are doing but because fuel consumption (less oil in gearbox less drag) is more important to them than lifetime of gearbox (which is good at manufacturers perspective anyway).[/quote]
I disagree with this. Engineers are far from stupid and they don’t deliberately design things to fail. They spend a great deal of time and research into figuring out how much oil, and what type of oil, should be in the gearbox and set the level accordingly. Doing anything else is inviting problems. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen customers try and reengineer something with disastrous results.
Designing something to fail isn’t same thing as designing something to not to last forever especially when using it in a way that puts it under more than normal load. With old Pajeros it is and was normal practice to use extra oil in gearbox to make 5th gear bearing last. Even Mitsubishi dealer services ask do you want it. First they just said that you shouldn’t use 5th with trailer. And in some other manual transmissions putting in extra oil will make input shaft front seal last longer especially when using high gears in low speeds. In some other transmissions some other things… What I didn’t say (and I’m not saying it) is that you should just put in extra oil to gearbox that you don’t know has problem that more oil will help. Also I never said that engineers are stupid…
[quote=”valde” post=92152]Designing something to fail isn’t same thing as designing something to not to last forever especially when using it in a way that puts it under more than normal load. With old Pajeros it is and was normal practice to use extra oil in gearbox to make 5th gear bearing last. Even Mitsubishi dealer services ask do you want it. First they just said that you shouldn’t use 5th with trailer. And in some other manual transmissions putting in extra oil will make input shaft front seal last longer especially when using high gears in low speeds. In some other transmissions some other things… What I didn’t say (and I’m not saying it) is that you should just put in extra oil to gearbox that you don’t know has problem that more oil will help. Also I never said that engineers are stupid…[/quote]
Couple of things. You listed some very specific makes and models in your explanation. I do not think you can make the assumption that ALL other manual transmission would benefit from being overfilled. In fact, if you read through this post you’ll see that the problem was actually CAUSED by the transmission being overfilled with the wrong fluid. Given that it caused a shifting problem, I’d say that’s enough evidence to conclude that overfilling a manual transmission is not a good idea. That said, I’m a Honda master technician with over 10 years experience. I say, don’t overfill a Honda transmission.
I newer said that overfilling most transmissions will do any good. Yes I did read this and I know that overfilling will also do bad things. Originally my post was meant for LandRover who only said bad things that are caused by overfilling.
[quote=”valde” post=92255]I newer said that overfilling most transmissions will do any good. Yes I did read this and I know that overfilling will also do bad things. Originally my post was meant for LandRover who only said bad things that are caused by overfilling.[/quote]
To be honest I agree with LandRover. I respect your experience however, but in the case of this transmission overfilling was not a good thing.
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