I have an 05' Rx-8 with about 38k miles on it. It's a GT manual trans with stock components. MY problem is that lately I'm having a hard time shifting into 1st from a dead stop. I usually have to shift to neutral, release and re-engage clutch, and then shift back into 1st.

I'm thinking I may have clutch issues. I'm not sure what those issues could be? No other gears seem to give me problems. 1st can feel like a steel wall is blocking me from shifting into it..and yes i have the cluth pedal depressed FULLY.

I've taken damn good care of this car and bought it new. I once dumped the clutch downshifting and smelt it for 30 minutes or so but beyond that I've been pretty gentle with it.

I'm looking for some pointers on where to start searching for answers(used search engine but couldn't find any situation quite like mine). Thanks for any tips you can give me.

 

I had the same problem. It took 3 times at the shop until Mazda replaced my tranny. I pulled into the dealer and showed the service writer how it wouldn't go into first with the cluth pressed down. The only way to get it into gear was to rev it a bit, then it went right in. But if you can show them the problem, you'll get it fixed faster.

 

B in R:

Check out the clutch pedal bracket up under the dash. There have been more than a few cases of spot weld failures on the bracket resulting in less than full release of the clutch when depressing the pedal. There is a good thread on this topic with pictures of the failure points so search the forum and read.

Here's a link to the thread I referred to:
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...+pedal+bracket