Gear whine only in the 4th and 6th gear?
 

04 with 67K miles on the clock. motul gear 300 (more info on the fluid) was the fluid in the transmission for the past year and half.

About a month ago I started noticing gear whine only in the 4th and 6th gear between 2500 and 3000 rpms when I am accelerating..whine will go away if let go of the accelerator/unload the drivetrain. It is more pronounced when car is cold but still there when car/transmission warms up.

I changed the transmission fluid this weekend and put redline mt-90 in. Shifts a bit smoother but whine is still there...there was a lot of metal dust caught on the drain plug magnet.

Did a search on the forum but didn't find much..any ideas what is causing it..and more importantly can it lead to transmission failure?

hi
i've noticed whine in a few gears, but i'll keep an eye/ear on it next time i drive, i've got a broken arm right now and i'm driving another car/automatic.

but i also remember similar behaviour with my old probe gt/ze, whining gears, worse under load.

that car went for 200,000 km (120,000 miles) with a lot of lapping days and slalom events.

mauro

I had this problem and it turned out to be a rip at the top of the inner rubber gear shift boot. When I was in 4th and 6th the shifter was at the bottom so the hole was exposed and stretched open, when I was in 1/3/5 gears it was quiet because the hole was squished closed.

Something easy to check anyway, I just replaced the part.

Chris

Thanks for the tip I will check it out.

Have had this exact issue for the last 7 years/100,000 miles . Never went away ,improved or got worse . Fitting a new trans soon which i'm hoping will get rid of the noise .... Finally !

Hi
i've been noting the noise in any gear, it is quite low and often drowned out by the exhaust. If the revs are high enough, and there is some engine braking, then i notice the whine again. Its generally at higher rpm, 3500 at least.

Shifting is fine, the car did about 10 slaloms this year and still shifts fine down to 1st for the occasional slow course.

But a whining noise in low gears is noticeable in many cars...

Possibly the whine is there in all cars, at 5000 rpm ours are just waking up, my old 5.0 mustang was dying by then and roaring wonderfully and just drowning out little whines...

lmao! my car does this too, and there is a small hole in the boot... i guess i will plug it, or swap to a new boot and see if it changes.

i did look thru all the manuals, and i don't see why it would be louder or quieter in any gear except maybe 5th where its straight thru.

funny thing is this whine happens only under load as soon I let go of accelerator it goes away..

how do you take off the leather boot. does the ring just pop out or do I need to turn it before it pops out?

the whole shifter plate comes off, the leather boot is screwed to that. so unscrew the shift knob, and pull up on the shifter plate, there is a spot to put your finger by the e brake handle. disconnect the nav/heater switches if you have em, and you should be looking at the rubber shift boot.

thanks for the tip on removing the cover.
yes as expected i have a tear in the rubber cover, a very large (1 inch) tear around 10-10:30 and a smaller one at about 7:30.
so when the car is in 4th or 6th, the whine was the loudest because the hole was opened at its greatest.

if you think the whine is loud normally, drive around a few days with the cover off. holy smokes is it ever loud, especially when opening it up in 2nd....

i'm not sure what the rubber boot would cost, but i'd rather spend my money on brake pads (hawkes) and stuff for the track.

its incredible to hear the noise disappear almost completely just by sticking your finger in the hole.

mdc

Das boot is F157-64-490A retail is $99.84, so yeah that's a set of pads...

100 bucks for a rubber boot..wow

Duck tape fixes everything...
However I think I will opt for a junkyard boot ^_^
Do not ghetto rig the rx8, she loves us and we love her.

already tried the duct tape. not that great. quite difficult to get it mated to the surface.
i'd suggest sacrificing a piece to clear off debris/dust.

but basically the duct tape cannot attenuate the sound like the rubber does. even the tiniest opening in the boot lets the sound out.

hey with all the idiosyncrasies of this car, why worry about the whine? its character...yeah that's it, character.....

maur

update on my whine..checked the rubber boot on the shifter..not torn so that leaves me to believe that there is something going on in the transmission..could it be that 4th and 6th gear syncors are making the noise?

weird thing is that with these super cold temperatures we are having in north east whine is almost not noticeable?