09 - Manual Transmission grinding

[Que165]

I have an 09 vibe with 2.4L 5-speed and 155k miles. Still on original clutch, engine, trans, in fact no major parts have ever really been replaced other than brakes.

It started with a grind when upshifting into 3rd from 2nd, even with the clutch all the way on the floor. Now, itll grind upshifting from 1st to 2nd, and from 2nd to 3rd. Downshifting from 4th to 3rd makes the worst grind of all, and I get around it by always downshifting into 2nd and then back up to 3rd. The way i avoid all of this during daily driving is to pull it out of gear, count "1, 2" while the RPMs drop a bit, and then it slots into the next gear no problem.

My first though was that the synchros for 3rd and 2nd gear are trashed, which would require a transmission rebuild to fix. Ive also wondered about the master cylinder being a cause, however the fliud level is always fine (shares reservoir with brake fliud). Another guess is the clutch, it does have 155k miles on it. Another thing to note is that the shifter is sloppy as hell, tons of play in every gear, could this be a cause as well? Is that remedied just by replacing the plastic bushing right underneath the shifter? Ive also read that it could also be the shift linkage causing the grind between gears.

There are a lot of possible causes and i dont know where to start, i dont know how to for sure start to rule them out. Any ideas?

[tpollauf]

Welcome to GenVibe. I too have the identical year Vibe setup as you (2009 Vibe GT w/ manual tranny).... but at a fraction of the mileage. For me all still feels new and part of the reason may be that I do not always run through every gear while driving. A habit I got into while driving my older Vibe GT which has the six-speed manual tranny. Anyways I drive the five speed routinely shifting 1-3-5 and hardly ever downshift. Every now & then 2nd & 4th will get used depending on the speed I maintain. the six speed will be 1-3-5-6 and that car, sitting at 150k miles, has exactly what you described .... very sloppy shifter mechanism & very slight grinding every now & then. It's so bad sometimes when very cold that I can't get it into first gear just to get moving. Pausing an extra second or two does eliminate the grinding as you discovered. Didn't look into any fixes for it yet BUT will have to real soon. Hopefully others here have experienced it and have some suggestions. Good luck

[trb]

Tim, that's like how I drive my Mustangs and how I drove my old 03 GT. Almost never use 3rd and 5th on the 6 speed unless im "testing out the acceleration" and I skipped 2nd and 4th on the 5 speed. I almost never downshift unless I'm driving down a hill. And those don't exist in Houston!

As I mentioned on FB, changing the fluid would be my first step. I don't know if there are any provisions for adjustment on these, but the prior owner did change the slave cylinder and master cylinder on the 03 GT when the clutch was done at about 195k. The original clutch went out at about 40k after the second owner bought it when it was 2 yrs old, so he got about 150k from the second clutch. As for the shifter feel, since these are cable shifters, replacement bushings might be a good upgrade if there is some play in the shifter mount.

[Que165]

yeah it's probably a little to late to change my shifting habits, wish I did that 10 years ago! I'll change the fluid and see what happens, but I'm guessing there's gotta be more to it than that