Well after a 9 month hiatus as a Honda owner, I'm back in the Nissan family. After waiting for over a month, I finally sold my Accord and picked up a 00 SE 5 speed.

I had always heard that they were a little weird in 1st, and I seem to be experiencing it first hand. When I take off in first its really hard to get a smooth start. Is this normal? Is there a cure?

 

I beleive there is a fuel cut off TSB for this.

 

I started reading through all of the FAQs and TSBs last night and wondered if that was what was causing it.

What exactly is a TSB? I didn't see a detailed explanation of it in the FAQs. Is it basically a recall? How do I go about utilizing one? Do you just print it and take it to the dealer?

 

Is this applicable only to the 5 speed 5th gen's? I have a 6 speed 2003, and it's kind of hard to get it going smoothly without babying the clutch too long. I was under the impression that this is just a characteristic of the cars, and nothing could be done about it except adjust your driving style. What does this TSB do to eliminate the problem?

 

what I consider to be a hair-trigger clutch and driving style.

Some people like to start off at 1200-1400 rpms and as the clutch starts to take hold lift off the gas just a tad to avoid slipping the clutch a lot, this immediately invokes the fuel cutoff (because it's too sensitive)..when that happens the revs begin to drop rather suddenly, then the driver feeds more gas to compensate, the fuel delivery comes back and jerk jerk jerk is the result. Of course, this is all exacerbated by the fact that our clutch has about two millimeters between 'on' and 'off'...it's by far the most sensitive clutch I've ever driven.

If i'm starting out on flat roads, I actually start letting off the clutch almost at idle and feed gas in as the clutch starts taking hold...this eliminates the possibility of activating the fuel cutoff issue caused by lifting off the gas- which in this technique does not happen- as well as the side benefit that my clutch 'slip' is minimal.

Yes, if you're not perfect in feeding in the gas -because you're starting out almost at an idle- causes me to stall the car about once a week...big deal. The reward is almost perfect starts 98% of the time and what I know will be a loooong clutch life