Okay so a bit of a whopper for my first post here, please forgive me.

A month ago I picked up a 2007 Fit LX with a MT, during some previous lurking around here I was able to pin down that infamous roof water leak, so I am pretty happy there.

As of late however I have noticed my transmission will "click" into gears, not the usual notchy and rubbery feel of the shifter mind you, but something more akin to a millisecond of grind feeling but without any noticeable sound of grinding. I have actually had the fluid replaced twice so far, the second time was with the plain old Honda MTF after having run Pennzoil Synchromesh. I found the Pennzoil blend was just too heavy and was making the car consistently "grind" into 3rd and 5th so I got it drained and just went OEM.

Its been a couple weeks now running the Honda stuff and I have noticed that I now oddly get more trouble with that grinding click feel into 2nd gear all of a sudden, yet 3rd and 5th gear actually did smooth out slightly. This has me a little confused as the car has only 133,000km (or 82k Miles for those in the US). In my daily driving I tend to shift gears roughly around 4k so its not like I am trying to force gears while going too slow for proper synchro action.

If there are any topics that do cover this I would love to hear about them, otherwise any ideas?

 

This happened to me before my clutch blow out. My stock clutch only went about 75/78K. I've heard a few others having to replace their clutches before 100K as well. Could be that time my friend.....

 

That would be quite some low clutch life there, though the grab still seems good on mine, strange if it would effect going into 2 and 5 mostly but yet 4 is almost always pretty good and 3 is decent as well.

 

what you need to do is find an empty stretch of road. Run out 1st gear to 5-6k rpm, then SLOWLY go into 2nd. Try to make it very slow, so you can pinpoint if its the transmision acting up, or if your shifter or shiftercables have crappy bushings.

The factory shifter sits on 4 squishy rubber mounts, and the cables have 2 squishy rubber surrounds to absorb some of the shock the transmission experiences during shifts.

If your engine/transmission mounts are factory, it is easily possible one or two of your mounts are going soft, and low gears like 1st and 2nd can grind simply because the slop is easier to effect the shift.


This is why I tell you to go to high rpms, and slowly shift, to really find if it is infact the transmission, or if it could be the mounts, or the shifter assembly (bushings) somewhere

 

Interesting, so if it manages to go in smooth then it may be just bushings throwing off any quicker shifts, if not then its possibly synchros?

I had the center console off and the shifter apart a few days ago, figured I would re-grease things since the original stuff was looking a bit sparse and dust covered. So I think I know the ones you are talking about. As for the transmission, as far as I know everything on that car is stock, probably even the clutch haha.

 

its not unusual to get over 100k miles on a honda clutch. The only people who have had to change it early are those who dont really understand how to drive the,. It appears lots of people think feathering the clutch all the time to keep it smooth is okay, when in fact it literally destroys the clutch.


Do that test, and post back. If going smooth and slow is perfect, try fillling your mounts.

All you need besides tools is a cartridge of window weld ($25 or so), a caulking gun, and some tape to stop the weindow weld from falling out while it dries.

Downside is the 24-48 hour full cure. It appears dry and hard at first, but the stuff does not breathe well and needs a day.

Make sure the mounts are done OUT of the car. engine weight will cause it to droop and be ineffective if drying with weight on them

Filling my mounts worked wonders for shift quality and throttle response. what used to be a few inches of movement before feeling it engage now feels much better and firmer

 

With almost 20 years driving a standard vehicle its hard to say my clutch was on me. I bought my Fit used with 69,xxx miles on it. The clutch blew out in less then 8K miles of me driving on it. Who knows how the previous driver drove the vehicle. Just saying….

 

all it takes is one person doing a few foolish things and the clutch has lots of wear and tear on it.

Id agree the previous owner was probably the source, but also keep in mind the Fit has a clutch delay valve on it. It slips the clutch during shifts a bit.

My fix will be a 01-05 civic clutch master, or if Im too cheap, a 92-00 civic clutch master and a bit of bending to the hardline

 

Alright, so I took it for quite the long drive yesterday (hour and a half to meet up with some friend) so the car got put through its paces a little between a few lengthy hill climbs and some city driving.

I tried the extremely slow shift, for 2nd gear, it actually was hard to tell if it made a difference, sometimes it felt like a smoother shift, but other times it felt practically the same as before. I did notice that if I held the clutch for a solid 2 seconds between shifts for other gears that they shifted way nicer, 5th gears click virtually disappeared. So that has me wondering if I got clutch drag. Though I know the shifter bushings on the transmission could be playing a role in this.

As a side note, I was also carrying around a car load of people at some points throughout the day and that extra weight did seem to make the car feel as if it had slight slippage between gear changes. Though part of me feels that its a common symptom of a weighed down small car?

 

my clutch didnt change behavior hauling all my cargo from texas to wisconsin. Roughly half a ton spread throughout the car.

Could try soaking up the clutch fluid in the reservoir with an old rag, pour fresh DOT3 or DOT4 into it, pump the pedal 30-40 times, repeat one more time, and see if that does anything.

Shouldnt have to crack the bleeder doing this method as long as you do not touch the pedal during this process.

 

I am assuming that I would need to pump it with the cap off?

Weeks ago as part of my first troubleshooting to this problem I gravity-bled the clutch. I loosened the bleeder valve and made sure to keep the fluid high throughout the whole process as the old fluid ran out.

 

Bit of an update here, last week I went to a local transmission shop and got them to take it for a spin. The bitter sweet end result being that at the end of the day I was told that while they have worked on a few fits, they have all felt like that and commented that mine actually seemed to shift quite smoothly. Though it had been a good 1k of driving since the new fluid and maybe it is finally starting to break in? 5th seems to be a bit better than it was a couple weeks ago. So now I just am left with a 1-2 shift that still always feels off in that same way (shifting from 1-2 at 3-4k RPM feels clicky and notchy, but shifting from 1-2 at 2k RPM, or say when the car is only doing 20kmph/13mph feels smooth if not for being a very gutless acceleration)

I honestly cant discredit them too much on it cause I have dealt with them over the past couple years and they did a pretty awesome job on my 93 civic SI with some tranny work when I had it, I wasn't charged for them taking a look at the Fit and was simply advised to play around with the speed and rpms I shift at and if anything feels like its getting worse, to bring it back.