6 Speed Oddity
 

I live in the Northeast and the last two mornings it has been cold. I was running a little late for Church this morning and hopped in the Max and just took off.

For the first 5 minutes the 6 Speed shifted the smoothest it has ever shifted. It felt like it fell into gear with absolutely no resistance whatsoever.

However, about 5 minutes later she was back to normal, you know, notchy and resistant. Oh well, do you think it has something to do with the expansion and contraction due to temperature ??

When it's cold, my 6 speed is very stiff. It gets smoother as it warms up. Have you replaced the factory gear oil? I still have the stock oil in mine.

Yes, I have replaced it with MT-90.

I want to do that before it gets really cold here. I have 13,000 miles and figured it wouldn't hurt to change it. For the first 2500 miles it was a bit nochy but it has smoothed out nicely since then. I was hoping the MT-90 would help smooth it out even more.

Does your 6 speed shift hard in the warm weather, too? Did you notice any change when you went to the MT-90?

I did notice a small change from 2nd to 3rd. The Max shifts strangely. Sometimes it is smooth and other times I almost have to force it into gear.

About once a month or so it will not want to go into 1st. I have to hit the clutch again, and then it slides in.

I'm still baffled that yours shifted smoother when it was cold, tho :gotme:

yeah that's odd. :gotme:

My 99 5spd is a little stiff and notchy when cold too, but after it gets warmed up it's smooth again.

That is what puzzles me about this transmission. Sometimes it works great but most of the time it shifts like crap. There is no ryhme or reason as to what conditions it performs best under.

When mine is cold it's not very easy to shift, with a bit of resistance from the shifter, not after warm though.

not the same car, but my celica will shift horribly when the temp in the tranny is warmed up and shifts like butta when cold. I noticed this started happening after about 50K hard shifting miles. Before my syncro's started to wear, the tranny would behave the opposite of what it does now. Huh, go figure i don't know why?