I purchased by 6MT Fit last August so we're almost to it's first 'birthday'. I took it in to the dealer I purchased from for an oil change and waited in the lounge while they completed the work. An hour later I hop back into my car and start driving home.

Right away the gear shift felt really weird. Any time I pushed the knob to the right it would stick in neutral. I would have to use more force to put it into 5th or 6th. I had to use two hands to get it back into reverse from a stop. I immediately brought it back to the dealership (didn't even make it home) and was told that the gear shift cables have a "defect" and they will need to be replaced. According to the customer service rep this was just a "coincidence" that is occurred right after my oil change.

Has anyone else had an issue like this? Am I being fed a load of shit about the "coincidental" nature of the timing of this issue? The car was driving perfectly when I parked it at the dealership and something was wrong right away when I drove it off. What could they have possibly done during an oil change that would affect my car this way? Anybody else have a "defect" in their gear shift cables?

 

I don't think they're making it up. There's plenty of room for dealers (hell, all garages) to be crooked without actively breaking parts and then sending people on their way, hoping that they come back for a fix- besides, at less than a year old it should still be covered. They could have fixed something on paper without you ever hearing about it, or at least "fixed" it and told you about it when they were done: "We felt the shift linkage was acting up and replaced the cable for you under warranty, have a great afternoon."

We call what happened to you a "sinceya," a problem noticed right after a visit that has nothing to do with what was going on: Sinceya replaced my window regulator I've got a brake noise. Sinceya changed my oil the AC isn't as cold. Sinceya replaced my belt the tires are chopping. It happens, sometimes as a pure coincidence, sometimes because now that it's been in the shop the customer is suddenly paying attention to what condition the car is in.

It doesn't look like they're scamming you. If they were drumming up work, they'd have had the part on hand. If something they did broke it accidentally... that's even less likely. I've been at two dealerships over 13 years and I think I've seen one tech that couldn't drive a manual, and we have more employee owned manuals than sales has in stock.

I'm leaning towards it being a coincidence.

 

Thanks for your opinion!

I understand the "Sinceya" syndrome that you're talking about. I guess my argument would be that the way the gear shift feels is INCREDIBLY noticeable and it had been perfect up until I got into the car after this oil change. Even if it was just acting up I would be a lot less suspicious but this was a "perfect" to "oh god something is wrong" transition with the oil change being the only thing in between.

I really honestly thought that they had accidentally done something to the car (newbie tech? who knows) but if it's that unlikely I guess we'll chalk it up to a one in a million coincidence.

 

No argument here, it's always possible that someone screwed up- and shops are always watching for that. Techs tend to be proud of their work and want to know if something went wrong, Service departments don't want comebacks, and the owners hate any problems at all.

But thinking about what a tech has to touch to change the oil, I don't think he did anything to the linkage that wouldn't have happened that day no matter who was driving. There are plenty of ways to mess up a manual in a heartbeat, but the shift cable isn't one that comes to mind. If a new guy had done something, your car (really, the whole building) would probably have smelled like burnt clutch.

 

Did tech drain your tranny fluid by mistake?

I remember that when I changed my tranny fluid on my Suzuki with manual tranny, I only added about half of the oil required and forgot to add the rest (don't ask me how that happend).

A few days later I was wondering why I could not even get the gear shift lever into 2nd, 3rd and 4th, no matter how much force I used. It was a really strange feeling, not to mention driving around town using either 1st or 5th gear ))).

Sooooo.... get your tranny fluid level checked to make sure that ain't the issue.

 

The loss of access to those gears happened unexpectedly. I drove to the mall to do shopping and everything is smooth as butter, and when I came back to the parking lot to drive home, BAM! gears are gone.