I have a 93 ES and my car had been shifting hard lately. Sometimes, it takes a lot of force for me to get it in first gear and this continues throughout the gers, often, 3rd gear will girnd. Other times, it will shift smoothly. Today, I drove my car to work with it being hard to shift, but on the way home, I could shift very smoothly. Any ideas?

 

yes.. ill be watching this topic because mine does the same thing.. like when ur at a light and u have to go into first sometimes it doesnt go in so i throw it into second then back into first and it usually goes right in and third grinds sometimes maybe just one tick into third..

 

Does it ever kick out of 5th gear?

 

No it stays in all the gears fine. Well, sometimes when I shift from 3rd to 4th, it feels like it was about to fall out of 3rd, but it never does on its own.

 

i had the same problem and a s a result i had to get a new transmission for my TT ($3K):-( check the transmission fluid if its like mine there is no guage or level stick so you have to go in underneath and check it manually...there is an upper bolt that you need to remove...stick your finger in the hole and if you can feel transmission fluid underneath your finger then u have a problem i cant solve...my tranny was running completely dry for about a hundred and fifty or so miles and i burnt out my gears...and it was shifting hard throughout all of them and would often pop out of reverse and was very hard to downshift...try this and let me knowif it was helpful

 

Yea thats what my dad said. What kind of gear oil sould I use?

 

drain your old stuff and use a fully synthetic is my opinion. I use all ams oil productsin mine

 

your clutch could be out of adjustment as well. it might not be fully disengaging, check it quick cuz it will wear out the syncros.

 

I'm not the best and knowing stuff about cars so how do I check my clutch adjustment? And will I know if it is out of adjustment? And if the synchros are bad, how do i replace them?

I appreciate all the help.

 

syncros are expensive to do and will need a shop to do it. you need to drop the trans and so on. as for the clutch how much dead play is in the pedal? when does it acttually feel like it catches?