One of my only complaints with my car has been the engagement of my gear shifts. When going from first to second before the car is completely to temperature I have a slight battle with my syncros. It feels like they make contact, bump apart, and then I am able to engage second. Needless to say this is not how I envision a Porsche, let alone any modern car, to shift. I am beginning to think that I will just need to live with this annoyance due to buying a used car.

I have done a handful of changes in the effort to improve my shifting with some success.

I started with adjusting the shift cables - noticed little to no change. I then experimented with different transmission fluids - save yourself some time and just buy the OEM from Suncoast. The OEM fluid with some more cable adjustment almost completely fixed my 1st gear lockout! The 2nd gear bump continued to pledge me, but was no longer sounding like it was grinding (a small win). This brings me to present day. I just installed Function First cable ends and shift right this week.I can say the build quality on these products is top-notch, but not sure I would purchase them again. My car has nearly 100k on the shifter and cables and I have to admit I am struggling to feel a difference after the swap. I will give a more insightful review after I have had more time with them.

After the Function First additions I have adjusted the cables ~15 times looking for the sweet spot with little luck. The removal of plastic and rubber from the shifting has amplified the issue. I am beginning to get frustrated with my car and now wondering what else I can try to improve my feedback from shifting. Thank you for any insight.

 

New engine mounts can improve shifter feel, especially if you’re still on the original 100k ones.

 

Great tip Chris. I am planning on doing the mounts this winter.

 

Changed my motor mounts (Function First), transmission mount (oem) and transmission bushing inserts (Function First -orange) ....made a big difference in shifting and overall "tightness" of the driveline.

 

Sounds like I have more time in the garage coming up.

 

2009 C2S 145K miles

There are many that will disagree with me, but in my experience, adjusting the cables will do nothing. The reason it will do nothing is that only thing adjusting does is change the angle of the shifter.... you adjust to make the shifter stand straight up in neutral. This does nothing for or against shifting quality. All the mechanisms for shifting are inside the transmission. The transmission has no idea what angle the shifter is in. The shifter is a floppy mess held in place by what is inside the transmission.

Honestly, I feel our manual transmissions are not that high quality. They just are not. They are not even made in Germany any more, they are made in Japan by Aisin. This is my opinion: Porsche has given up on manual transmissions as they see an end to them.

Replacing your fluid with PTX, what is specified in my owner's manual, will "fix" the 1st gear jam for many, but it will return. Mine is returning earlier and earlier after a change. I am getting jamming again after just 20K miles since my 3rd PTX change. I think the damn dogs are just soft and underspec'd metal.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

Thank you for this post. Coming from a spec Miata and an s2000 I don’t love the shifter feel on my recently acquired 2005c2s. So I will look into this.

 

I have the exact same issue in my 2010 C4S going into 2nd when cold - slight grind. Only 2nd, no other gear. Never have the issue after a few minutes of warm up. I changed engine mounts 2 weeks ago and it made no improvement in this issue (however, reduced some idle vibration for sure, so still worth doing).

Must have something to do with being cold, but I have not figured out what.

 

Thank you for the input guys. It's ironic that I bought the manual transmission for longevity and is currently the only reason I would consider selling the car.

 

I don’t have this issue in my 997.1. Is the manual transmission the same between the .1 and .2?

 

Boxtaboy, I believe the 997.1 uses the G97.01 gearbox and .2 uses the G97.05.

 

I went through this just recently and the suggestions above are spot on. I didn't like the 1-->2 shift as it was clunky. I just changed out the motor mounts (2009 997.2 w/ ~60k miles) and the shifting is much more smooth now. I was surprised with the impact of the motor mounts, but it made a noticeable difference. I have been driving a Porsche for many years and what I would say is that the 1-->2 shifts in the different cars of mine have never been as smooth as the others, but if you slow down the speed of shift just a bit it will improve and be smoother.

Enjoy!

 

Thank you Swftiii. Its frustrating that, what I consider, a luxury sports car feels less refined than a Honda for example. It doesn't seem to a small percent of owners that are unhappy with the shifts unfortunately.

 

I noticed that sometimes when I think the clutch is fully depressed there's actually another half inch or so of travel.

 

Just piping in here, but both my 997.1 and 997.2 require an occasional double-clutch it get into 1st, and occasional knotchiness going from 1st to 2nd. PTX and new OEM motor mounts on the 997.1 completely solved the issues. Not enough to worry about on my 997.2 (25K miles) yet. I respectfully disagree with Bruce, and would suggest that these are very good manual transmissions that are build to withstand the very harsh use of even the higher horsepower versions of these cars to go to very high milage. These are not build to 150hp Honda specs, but for long term and extreme use. I would consider them very good indeed.