Slight gear grind in cold weather
 

Hey guys I notice I get a slight grind in 2nd and what seems to feel like a slight bite in to 3rd. But its only when the car is cold. Its about -7 C in the mornings, after the car has been running for 5-10min everything is fine. I had the oil replaced with Mercon fluid stated in the manual. Do I need to get the Syncros replaced? Any help would be great. Thanks.

Someone has suggested using "Ford Friction Modifier" to help with this problem. Anyone ever use this stuff?

How about a pure synthetic?

How many km's on the car?

If you shift to 2nd or 3rd by going to neutral, letting the clutch out and them into gear what happens?

I'll have to try that on my way home from work and let you know. Just out of curiousity lets say it doesn't grind when I do that, what does that mean?

I would look first at the blocker rings being the culprit.

Do you have a lot of km's on the car?

^^^great point and good question

The car has a 110,000km on it. I tried double clutching as pprince mentioned, didn't help much, its almost like if I granny shift it happens or is worse, if I do quick shifts the problem is less and non existant after the car warms up. The dealer I got it from suggest trying Ford Friction Modifier, if that doesn't work i'll have to do the 2 hour drive to dealer to have it fixed, which I will, but I just want to narrow it down before I go there. I'll have to do a search on blocker rings, you'll excuse me this is all new to me. Use to driving Imports for so long. Are blocker rings a big and expensive job?

When you have to R&R the transmission anyway you just rebuild the entire unit.

Then with that number of km's you have to look at replacing the clutch/PP/TO Bearing/M-C /Slave at the same time. It is potentially an expensive task.

Or, you live with it until it gets really bad. Which is probably the route to go.

Well thats promising! LOL. I have some warranty from the dealer I bought it from,
I just want to be informed before I go down, don't want to get BS'd by the dealer
into thinking its something less then it really is. Not sure what there going to be willing to do.
I'll keep you all posted. Does anyone think this Friction modifier will work?
All the searches i've done have people using it in there diff's, and not in the tranny.
Should I replace the fluid with some Royal Purple synthetic?

Friction modifier is used to keep the clutch packs on a limited slip from chattering. It makes them a bit slipery-er-er. That is a totally different application than using it in a manual tranny.

My uneducated guess would be that that would be a bad thing in a transmission. If it works at all it would not be a cure.

I was wondering when this thread was going to appear! Well , at 800 km I spoke with the dealership service advisor regarding 1st TO 2nd gear grind, and a slight grind into 3rd... this happens when I drive off, after I allow the engine to idle and warm up (5- 10 minutes) I even drove to the dealership and they allowed the car to cool down,I got there at 9am and they did not test drive it till 12 noon.
They told me yes second gear grind is happening and also when you go into third although 3rd was not as bad as sliding into 2nd... service manager looked up on the computer to see if there was any TSB on this, but came empty handed,I suggested that maybe it could be the syncros or a combination of syncros and tranny oil, but they had no answers, at least this complaint is officially logged in with ford.
I was on some other forum, and there was a whole discussion going on about this very subject,so I know Im not the only one experiencing this issue,there were a bunch of members with both 2010 and 2011 gt mustangs discussing this.
Over the holidays, I will be writing a detailed letter to Ford Canada,specifically to the engineering dept requesting a solution to this issue and will be sending this via registered mail.
I dread driving a perfectly NEW 2011 Mustang GT California Special with this issue.I am now at 3900 KM and this issue is still there.
Once the car warms up during driving this issue disappears, but not fully, I see from your post above that this issue has been going on for several years models and am disappointed that FORD has not dealt with it... it's very disconcerting to have this going on a brand new GT!
The grind itself CANNOT be doing any good to the internals and it will progressively keep getting worse. FORD needs to deal with this for it's customers, so far,I am not a happy camper with this ride, and yesterday I received another survey. I made these observations VERY CLEAR in the survey and photo copied the document for my records before I mailed it off, I'll keep you guys posted on this.
On another note: a Merry Christmas to all members

This appears to be a fairly common problem that Ford has not yet stepped up to the plate to fix.

My suggestion is to let Ford know about it and don't let us internet armchair quarter backs have you do anything to jeoparize a claim.

Please keep us posted.

Do not use rp in a tranny. It is meant as a race fluid only and there is alot of info online about how it eats thru gaskets. The oil is the same. What makes it lubricate so well is also what eats at your seals. It is a racing fluids. I have read many threads and independent testing about this stuff. Just because you haven't had an issue doesn't mean you won't. Especially suseptible is anywhere rtv gasket a has been used. Royal purple even warns against using it where rtv has been used as a gasket. Same thing with amsoil syncromesh. Now that I am an amsoil dealer it explains it in the dealers manual. Cork gasket takes longer but will also fall victim to failure. Do what you want but don't say you weren't warned.

I fully agree with you... I am not an engineer, and I am not about to tackle what I really know nothing about, the last thing I want is for FORD telling me that I used a tranny oil that voided my warranty.
A close friend of mine that happens to also be a lawyer has the same issue with a brand new performance white GTCS... basically we bought our Mustangs 3 days apart, his is also a 6 speed the only difference between the two is his came with the 3:55:1 rear end, while mine has the 3:73:1, the rest is identical other than color.
He's beyond pissed, his wife which happens to enjoy driving stick more than auto told him that she is nervous driving "her" new Mustang (he more or less bought it for her) till her tranny gets "fixed" by FORD.
He's talking about a class action law suit against FORD and so far he already has some 20 mustang owner names that are on his band wagon,mine included. He also is looking into canadian automotive arbitration,which will essentially force ford to "BUY BACK" these cars, from what he tells me, an arbitrator's usual judgement in cases such as these is the manufacturer (FORD) will be put on notice to develop a remedy (fix) within 90 days of judgement, failing which they will be ordered to buy back these cars, with full financial restitution to the owners.
I spoke with another close friend of mine that bought a 2011 Mustang Shelby this fall, and they do not seem to have this issue according to him, I also drove his and found shifts are smooth and as expected to "feel" in a brand new car.
I noticed his reverse gear placement is the opposite to where mine is, so maybe it is a different transmission than on the 5.0 GT's.
Man, I've been wanting a Mustang forever and always loved these cars, so I finally buy my dream car and this happens... to be honest with you, I have not mentioned any of this crap to my wife... yet! But she mentioned to me a couple of times what "that grinding noise is" and I told her it's caused by a cold running transmission.
F*ck, I hate to lie to her about stuff like this,but ultimately I'll let her in on this issue if it's not resolved.

Ford has issued a numbers of TSB's for the 2011 Mustang. Hopefully they step up and issue one for this too. It's just the right thing to do.

I know of one TSB for the 2011 mustang regarding the clutch sticking down at high rpm,can you please shed some light on other TSB's for the 2011 Mustang
Maybe we should have a sticky relating to all TSB for the 2011 seeing it's a brand new model with a new engine ( coyote 5.0)
Thanks VAEM

ANY GRINDING in a transmission is never a good thing,and will result in escalated wear and tear on internal components !
FORD needs to address this ASAP... all the advertising in the world regarding "Quality is job #1" is NOT going to convince anyone,in fact if anything they are messing with their integrity. A quality product needs little if any advertising, a satisfied customer is a REPEAT customer,plain and simple. Rushing a new product to market with serious issues punches massive holes in their integrity, and a grinding manual transmission to me is a pretty serious issue,it's not like a bulb burning out or a piece of trim coming off, those would be minor in my books but when it's something of a mechanical nature AND it involves a transmission, then I ask myself, should this company be trusted?

There is a TSB about this problems with the TR3650 and they change the 1/2 and 3/4 sliders with new sycnro. I ve done this TBS a lot in the past years.

There is another TSB to put 3 liter of Mercon V fluid, not more in the TR3650 01-07.

Since Everett is an Amsoil dealer, he can maybe confirm this, but I use Amsoil for the entire drivetrain, and even with Amsoil synthetic in the rear end, they recommend adding 4 oz of Ford Friction Modifier, part # XL-3, but I have never heard anywhere that this is ok to use in a transmission of any kind???

:?

So Everett.......what kind of deal can you give me? I have been purchasing my Amsoil products from Peavy Mart, here in Lloyd, but unfortunately I have to plan way ahead, to ensure they have what I need. There must be some sort of CMOC members discount hey:D

I had a Dodge SRT4,now sold, but dealer used to add friction modifier because of the Quafi limited slip,I remember this one time a rookie mechanic forgot to add it in and within 1 day I was getting definite grinding 2nd and 3rd... again as soon as it was added within another day the tranny was shifting like butter.
When I asked the service advisor about the stuff, he pointed it's use directly to the Quafi LSD,so it clearly was needed in those SRT4's.
Automotive engineers,specifically ones that specialize in drive train design/seem to have vast data at their finger tips as to what best works in specific transmissions... this by no means suggests they get it right EVERY time, but most of the time they do.Im wondering if this is one of those times/transmissions they have not yet got spot on.
My 2011 GT CS 6 speed manual has the same issue with grinding on 2nd 3rd,this happens pretty much every morning during the winter months,and lasts maybe 10 minutes... I usually fire it up at least 8/10 minutes before I drive away,yet it still happens,so I am doubting it's just a fluid issue.
Not sure yet how it is in warmer weather,I bought the car right on my B'day (9 October) and has done this right from new.
There is a very extended thread on another FORD forum with a ton of identical complaints,as a matter of fact there is a FORD rep that is actually (supposedly) helping a lot of owners with this particular transmission issue by the name of Dysha.
A lot of owners are quite disappointed with this happening on their new 2011 Mustangs,you could just read their frustration,post after post after post.
According to Dysha FORD still has no resolution on hand,bummer!

Simple fix - AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION.

I am so glad my 2010 is an auto

^^ Right On^^ I'll get right on that!!!!!! lol, NOT! :lol

Hi everyone!

First time posting here. Please forgive me for by-passing the introduction thread for now.

With regards to your shifting difficulties, mine does the same thing when cold and less when warm.

Ford does have a TSB (tsb11-03-18, sorry could not attach) on the issue outlining that if any customers with 2011/2012 Mustangs with MT's that are complaining about cold weather shifting, the fix is swapping out the fluid and replacing it with Ford's QDC trans fluid (as far as we know, it comes with the QS version of fluid). It's used in the Fiesta's dual-clutch tranny. Some have reported better shifting with the fluid but also noticed an increase tranny whine. Others report no change.

Yes, Deysha, the Ford CS Rep, does monitor the site and she has been very helpful.

The best advice I can any of you that are having rough shifting issues is to go through Ford and complain. Maybe the fluid swap will help you. Maybe it won't. One thing for sure, don't mess around with any friction modifiers as Ford has tried this and have determined that it will pose a wear issue down the road.

Many other owners are suffering more acute issues such as, not going into gear, popping out of gears, severe grinding, poor clutch engagement etc. There's a lot of speculation as to the cause or causes of these problems but at this point, we'll have to wait and see what Ford offers up. There seems to be another TSB in the works in the near future. What it will address and when it come out are unknown.

Work with your dealer.

Welcome aboard,and good info!!:tup

wow i was just about to ask the exact same question! my car grinds into second a bit and 3rd, 4th once in awhile but only when its cold. when the car warmes up it pretty much goes away. its super weird and my bullitt has 87,000 km

Have you changed the tranny fluid? The manual calls for 3.8L but Tremec says 3.0L is the new refill level and only to use non synthetic ATF fluid. This should eliminate the 1-2 grind

Just curious if anyone else has a 2012 manual car with a build date of March 2011 or later. From what I've read, most of the MT82 transmission problems were caused by improper installation of the pressure plate bolts at the Chinese factory where the transmission is built. Apparently too much loc-tite was applied to the bolts, so they tightened up before they were properly seated and later started backing out after around 1500 - 200 km of driving. I guess this affected a large number of 2011 and some of the early 2012 units, but not the more recent cars. I heard that the more recent units have an updated clutch assembly also, but I don't know if that is actually true.

My car was built on March 28, 2011 and it has no problems at all after 1100 km. I have missed a couple of 2-3 upshifts at high rpm, but that is probably because I wasn't used to the shifter yet. Anyway, many sports cars with high-revving engines produce enough vibration at high rpm to bonk you out of 3rd if you don't hit the gate just right. The list of cars known for balky 2-3 upshifts includes the Mazdaspeed3, Subaru WRX/STI, Corvette Z06, Porsche 996/997 and many more. My old Mazdaspeed3 was hard to shift in cold weather, and my friend who races Porsches tells me that they are a nightmare to shift at anything under -10 C. I think there's a lot of hype over a relatively small number of cars on the US Mustang forums, but I'm still curious to see how my manny tran performs over the rest of the summer. So far, so good and I hope it stays that way.

Thanks to the guys posting info, I would hate to have a new car with any issues but

OK, shifting issue solved. I was taking a typical palm-facing-left, thumb-on-top grip on the shifter and probably applying a bit too much sideways force on the 2-3 shift. A friend of mine told me to to take a palm-down grip with my forearm parallel to the floor. As soon as the shifter pops out of 2nd and into neutral, it will be in the 3-4 shift track, so just push it straight forward. I tried that advice and it worked like a charm, even shifting near the redline. I burned half a tank of gas just ripping around a deserted country road. Every shift felt like butter. Fun!!

Glad it worked out and I saw on a tv show years ago that when not shifting gears it's best to keep your hand off the stick

Yep, leaving your hand on the shifter tends to bend the splines on the shift fork. Most drivers don't think about that much, but it's just as bad as riding the clutch with your foot. Different method of damage, but still screws up your transmission either way.