stedge

Car looks very nice. 6k miles. warranty expired 2 days ago, unfortunately.

Only issues were -

suspect an alignment is in order

been sitting for 3-4 weeks

ceramic brakes are pretty darn good

most important, downshifting into second there was grinding. could prevent it with double clutching. Slightl balky engagement into first gear - persisted but improved during the short test drive.

I assume the tranny issues are synchros? What's that cost to repair?

Mr Michael B

Trans can be expensive, but I would try correct lube in it first. Who knows what could be in there, and some lube just does not suit the Porsche transaxle well at all. Great cars.

stedge

yeah, i assume some $. i am considering a ppi, as these cars are not often found locally.

car was serviced at local Pcar dealer, so fluids stock/standard.

I suspect it is more than fluids!??

LVDell

Not sure it was a "double clutch" that saved the grinding sound as the gearbox has synchros. Double clutching is for those gearboxes that are "un" synchro'd.

What you probably experienced is the equivalent of "rev-matching" since you slowed the gear down using more clutch than a single downshift.

You are more than welcome to swing down to my place and feel what the gearbox should be like.

mxdave74

i don't have experience of what improper fluid fill could sound like, but either way you'll want the PPI to directly address with certainty why shifting underperforming. good luck with investigation. If it begins to look questionable, don't worry about the fact that you don't see too many GT3s locally. It's fairly simple to expand you search across the Eastern half of the country or even the entire country. Best way to find your ideal car, for instance with a CPO warranty til 2010 if that's important enought to you.

stedge

maybe i can describe it better.

when downshifting (rev matching) from 5 to 4 or 4 to 3, no issue, from 3 to 2 if i did not double clutch, it always made a grinding sound and I did not force it. clutch was all the way in, etc, etc. always matched revs pretty closely, but it would do it, unless i really slowed the movement down to several seconds or really did double clutch.

not sure that makes sense, but it is how it behaved. my 993 surely does not do this (nor does the STI), nor did another gt3 i drove some time ago... maybe a ppi and more test driving of it will help me sort it out.

and dell, thanks for the offer. i would love to do that.

wbrownie

Agree that PPI is mandatory.

Less of an issue if under warranty but out of warranty it sounds like an expensive fix.

Would be a good excuse to lower the gearing a bit though....

LVDell

Another PPI needs to be done (european would be great or my guy up in Greensboro would be really good). Regardless, that just doesn't sound right wrt the 2nd gear downshift.

Jetmech

without reading everyones input...how cold was it outside..was the lube in the tranny nice and warm?

stedge

43-45 degrees. the sympoms did seem to lesson slightly, and the car was sitting a long time (3-4 weeks) prior. The owner has experienced the same thing,never investigated it... (???!)

Test drive was not that long, perhaps 20 minutes is all I had time for.

The rest of the car looked really good, so this is the only real fault I find, but obviously concerned it is a big one.

European is where I'd take it, but also going to call the local dealer who sold it and maintained it, see if any possibility of CPOing... all factored into final price, if we get that far...

E

stedge

and thanks, all for you replies thus far.

LVDell

If you could get it CPO'd that would be awesome! The dealer just needs to act as a pass through. Obviously you would have to pay tax and CPO fees on top of the sales price. It all depends if the seller is in good with the dealer. If so, it's nothing for the dealer to do it for you.

ron_dargenio

You didn't mention the mileage on the car....but it sure sounds like a couple synchros are on the way out in this gearbox. Definitely not normal and if it's a mechanical isuue, quite costly. I wonder if the car would pass a CPO inspection with the transmission like this or if the repair would be mandatory before it would pass. My guess is, the repair would have to be done.

stedge

6k miles

have a ppi tentatively scheduled next week
checking on the cpo thing
will do ppi first, and drive it again, because if it fails ppi i assume they'd never cpo it. deal dead then.

Bob Rouleau

The GT3 synchros on 2nd and 3rd are a bit fragile. If someone made a habit of making lightning shifts, they fail. This can also happen on fast upshifts from 2nd to 3rd. The tranny will balk and if you force things, the synchros and/or gears get hurt. Have seen several locally with broken teeth. Costly repair.

best,