Hi all, had my 2009 LX for about 2000k-two months or so. Has 110,000kms on it. Overall happy with it, but it seems to drop kind of hard into second gear unless I really baby it. Other gears are fine and I'm shifting at reasonable rpm. Going to bleed the clutch and replace trans fluid shortly (thanks for diyer poster vids), other than that any suggestions for troubleshooting? Cheers and thanks

 

are you saying its hard to move the shifter into second or that you are getting grinding? I cant really recall hearing any complaints from anyone on this and with a 100k miles, mine is still very fresh.

I can say many years ago, I ruined my 2nd gear syncro with a really bad shift. I'm still using that trans 9 years after the fact but yeah, I am really careful moving into 2nd. I'd imagine if that was the case and the fluid hasn't been changed in a while that you can confirm or deny that, probably worth spending a few bucks sending a sample of that fluid out for testing, they will tell you if there is metal in there. I'm sure there are others but I've always used: Blackstone Labs

 

It's not physically hard to shift and it doesn't grind or clunk. Just feels difficult to time or blend smoothly I guess from first to second. Drained trans oil was like new and clutch fluid was good condition too although there was likely some air in the line. Going to check the valves and replace the sparks while I'm there shortly enough. Might just be a touchier clutch than say my wife's Toyota corolla? I'll see if anything comes along, thanks for the reply.

 

oh ok! I think you are far better off than your initial post alluded to. It is a really easy clutch to use. Yes you might have air in the clutch line, OR what I think might be more likely is that you aren't accustomed to driving a car with as little power as the fit. I know its going to be a kick in the pants when I take one of my other cars out of storage (and they certainly aren't high hp monsters, but wtf fit for not having enough to dead start from 3rd). Yeah it throws me off too, and 2nd will always be the most obvious because it is the most important transition.. If you really want to find out, take a new/used model for a test drive, give yourself a like-like baseline.

 

That's a good idea, there's a friend from work that has a 2014 I think. He's actually the guy that put me onto the idea of a Fit being compatible for me, being a bigger buy. I have a feeling yes the power is the central issue, but I've been very happy with things overall. Cheers

 

b. ,,
I don't think I can face another dealership for a while, I was not a very good car shopper...

 

Problem solved. I originally did a gravity type of bleed with the clutch fluid, along with replacing trans. fluid to little effect. While I was putting on my winter tires I changed out the brake fluid and decided to do the clutch again with the remaining dot 3. Used kind of a prop stick system to keep the fluid (of both) flowing after I drained and refilled. World of difference, must have been gobs of air in there. Just figured the clutch was quite touchy but works awesome at this point. Brake bleed was a hassle-kept trying to figure a way to get to the bleed points without Tire removal but seems like more work to crawl under. But clutch was super easy, and for the effect, etc I definitely recommend it as even a two year detail. Cheers, on to the sparks and valve adjustment.

 

Great I'll have to try bleeding my clutch too.

I'm having similar problems and just thought I wasn't used to driving cars with the clutch damper still installed. I'm pretty sure I read the Fit has its damper installed in the clutch master cylinder.

 

Not sure about the damper but I was surprised what a difference it made. The people I bought the car from recently said they had done all the maintenece minder details so it should have been up to date, I'm just going over everything to mind to start from scratch. As I said, it was so easy to do I'll probably do it more often than specified. Cheers and good luck.