'09 GT 5th to 6th gear shift grinds
 

Hi all,

I picked up the '09 RX-8 GT in August and just this past weekend it started doing something odd (with about 650 miles). When shifting from 5th to 6th, the gear grinds for anywhere from a fraction of a second to something that feels like a sizable portion of a second. Thinking it was a one time thing, I repeated the exercise quite a few times shifting up and down between 5th and 6th. I'd say about 2/3rds or 3/4ths of the shifts to 6th resulted in at least some grinding.

I have read the sticky and other threads about grinding, but those seemed to center around 2nd gear.

I plan to take the car to the dealer to look at, but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions before I do that, or about what to tell the dealer when I do return the car?

Thanks,

Doug

Take it to Wayne Mazda in NJ.

Its a bit far. but don't even bother to bring it into any of the NYC's dealerships. I've been to almost all of them. and they all SUCK.

Thanks for the recommendation.

1) Is there anyone you would recommend in particular that I talk to there?

2) How do you get from there and to there (to Manhattan) when dropping the car off or picking it up?

Thanks,

Doug

join the club
 

You are not alone. Brand new 09 GT. Just under 500 miles on the odo and going into 6th gear starts grinding. Even tried double clutch and no use. Griiiind. Dropped it off at Hine Mazda this AM; they say they are a "QMD" Quality Monitoring Dealership and will be in touch with Mazda regarding the issue. At this rate, I bet we are not the only ones that will have complaints about the new 09 tranny. I expected it to be a reliable transmission, having been lifted from teh Miata. I'll keep you posted on what Mazda says. I had an 2000 3-series on a manual that had the shift interlock fail on the 5 speed at 30,000 miles: got a 'remanufactured' transmission. Should we be wary of getting a similar outcome? Remanufactured definitely does not sound 'new'. Any input here?

Replacement transmission
 

I finally got around to leaving the car for repair, although on the drive over the grinding happened once on a shift from third to fifth as well as the consistent fifth to sixth (that I tried twice just to verify it still happened and then didn't use sixth). The next day I got a message saying a new transmission was ordered. The more interesting thing was that when I finally talked to the service consultant, they said Mazda was sending a technician with the new transmission to figure out what went wrong. Apparently they are curious.

I wonder what the likelihood is that this replacement will cause other problems. It seems like major surgery.

Does anyone have the repair or service manuals available so I can look into what this entails?

Johh Hine Mazda in San Diego has a replacement trasmission on order from LA area; should be here in 2 days. You bring up a good point; this will be 'major surgery'. Wonder how many more of the '09 transmissions will have to be swapped out...

Mazda is installing a brand new transmission for me tomorrow. No remanufactures are available yet :) Let's hope the new ones don't have the same flaw or lemon law here we go...

I missed this thread back then, not sure where u went but I'll answer the ? anyway.

1. Speak with Anthony. Say that Jackson refer ya to there :)

2. I take Lincoln, go NJ Turnpike, then go was it route 23 ? I think. You can find their address on the internet then google map it (I have a Navi installed)

who and where replacing the tranny for you ?

Is not that hard to drop the tranny, just use impact wrench to pa-pa-pa-pa-pa all the bolts out, the hardest part is putting it back together with the right measurements.

Always easier to take apart than to put back together... Hopefully our new '09 transmissions run flawlessly and we're not back in the shop after 1 week.

pulling the tranny and replacing it with another is minor. It's like changing a tire. On a lift with air tools, it's about 15 minutes to remove the braces and unbolt it.

My new transmission works great. Problem solved. We'll see if this one holds up more than 500 miles.

Are you serious!?! Mazda has worked and re-worked these new trannys, some are gonna be bad most are gonna be good. The '09 trannys we have and the ones we have sold to other race teams have held up very well. Maybe some of you just got a one from a bad lot. Not really that big of a deal. Every car has it's quirks, but it just pisses me off when I hear the little whiny comments made by this growing group of babies on the forum about..."if it don't work I'm just gonna sue" or the lemon law BS. :icon_no2:

Sorry for the rant, just a bunch of whiny kids on here lately.

This "whiny kid" just had a transmission fail after 483 miles. Should I have lower expectations?!? RX-8s are not a high volume car, so when you see multiple failures in quick succession, it's not a "quirk", it is a quality control issue. I thought other '09 owners might benefit from me sharing my experience.

Agree with you: probably a bad batch of transmissions. No need for you to get all defensive. I have simply stated the FACTS of my unfortunate experience. Thanks for the rant.

100 miles on new tranny. Feels good. A little notchy going into third (syncros wearing in?), but I'm optimistic that it will feel smoother with a few thousand miles. Just cracked 600 miles and smiling all the way to red line :)

I am still waiting for my new transmission to arrive. It should be here on Wednesday, from Hiroshima. I hope my fellow NYC'er is right and it's an easy change with extra attention to the torques.

I'm staying far away from the other issues! :)

Just saw this thread, would like to say this:

Same thing happened to me, 5th to 6th would grind horribly, it only had 300 miles on it, however, it took my dealership 4 weeks to get me a new transmission and they tried to blame it on me.

Also, about third gear, mine was really weird and odd, and it felt like it was damaged, but I put 1,000 miles on it and it's fine now (it was weird up to about 800 miles).

If anything, call MazdaUSA and bitch, it's what I had to do to get my tranny.. originally they wanted to keep my 8 for 2 months.

Sorry to hear your dealer was not responsive to your 5th-6th problem. Mazda treated me extremely well in San Diego. Went on a test drive with head tech so he could confirm and I had a new transmission installed within a week. Maybe they were already aware of a bad batch of transmissions.....

3rd gear: When your tranny was new did it feel like it was tapping a piece of metal half way going into gear from 2nd to 3rd? That's what mine feels like half the time on the new tranny. Glad to hear yours broke in well; I expect mine to do the same as it's not causing any issues other than feeling very strange.

I would say most dealership just gonna use impact wrench for ALL the work.

ITs fast and easy.


One shop who did my Tranny use a Torque wrench for reinstall. Im happy with that. It took a long time tho.

I was the first of the 09s to have that issue, so I assume they must have briefed other dealerships about potential problems. Then again, my dealership people were downright arseholes.

And yea, it felt like it was being blocked by something before sorta meshing into gear forcefully. It just felt like it didn't want to go into 3rd, but still did if you gave it a little more force, it's fine now though, but it did have me worried for a little while.

Kinda reminds of when the car was first rolled out in 03, had all kinds of problems and people were quick to point it's faults...same now with the new tranny. It's new, not a redesigned previous model...my sources at Mazda tell me there is/was an issue with the 5/6 gear shift forks. Now because there are so little numbers of '09 8's on the road it's hard to tell how many are or will be affected.

Sorry for yours and others peoples troubles but the majority of us who have played with the new trannys have found nothing wrong with those. I think it will get straightened out in the near future but until then, that's what warranty is for.

You're exactly right; that's what the warranty is for :) In my case, Mazda handled the issue extremely well.

BTW, this new tranny is the primary reason I bought the '09 (and um, I guess the warranty). I really like the lower ratios; big difference in feel at lower street speeds. I expect it to be very reliable. I understand it has already seen use in MX-5 application. Just waiting for the 2nd-3rd shift to iron out... Hard to describe but it feels like it almost catches something on the way in. Doens't affect the shift quality in any negative way; just feels odd.

Yea, don't worry, give it a good 500 miles at least. If it doesn't loosen up though, contact MazdaUSA or your dealership.

3rd transmission?
 

My 2nd transmission just started grinding into 6th gear with 1550 miles on my odometer. Hey, at least this tranmission lasted 1000 miles, twice as long as my first ;) Should hear from Mazda tomorrow what they plan to do. I imagine I will be on my 3rd transmission soon...

Hm.. this is interesting now.

Mine's been going strong so far, I've put 3,000 miles on it since

if thats the case, I think its something else that causes the tranny failure.