Balky 5-speed manual?

[themrfreeze]

Hi all.My spiffy new Vibe with 200 miles on it is exhibiting a small problem. Every once in a while, while I'm accelerating & upshifting (I have the base model with 5-speed manual), the tranny balks going from 2nd to 3rd. If I move the stick down to 4th then back to 3rd (with the clutch held down all the time), I can get it into 3rd. It only does this once in a while, so I'm not sure if it's an anomoly with the Vibe or perhaps a need to have the linkage adjusted. Any thoughts?

[Mavrik]

Seems to be hard to shift into 3rd from second? Mine did that the other day about twice and never did since so I have not done anything about it. I just thought I might not have had the clutch down all the way..

[themrfreeze]

I wonder if the way I was shifting was causing the stick to not enter the 3rd gear gate properly....I was shifting kind of hard and fast, and as a result not really allowing the stick to move laterally between gears. Driving home from work, I moved the stick a little slower so it could move laterally, and it didn't hang up. A few more days of doing this should tell me if it's a problem with the car or the driver.

[Mavrik]

Sounds like a plan, I may have been shifting to fast also. Faster then normal I suppose since it hasn't done that since and I haven't changed my driving habits.

[joatmon]

I've only had troubles when trying to downshift from 5 to 4 too fast.

[themrfreeze]

This morning on the drive to work (stop-and-go city driving), I was being more deliberate with the shifter instead of just pushing it around. I only had it balk once, but it was because I had tried to do a fast shift again. When I felt it starting to balk, I just moved the shifter slightly to the right (to it's center position) and it went into 3rd no problem. It looks like the tranny just isn't as forgiving of "sloppy shifting" as our VW (which is the only other manual tranny I've driven and is supposedly a very forgiving tranny), and I'll just need to be more deliberate when shifting it. No big deal....it's probably not a good idea to shift as fast as you can anyway.

[Mavrik]

Yeah this isn't Fast And Furious fast shifting to beat the car to the bridge to ramp off into the air glad to know I shift to fast also now and then and won't worry about it.