I have a 99 manual Forester. Recently I have been having trouble primarily with 2nd gear sticking. I had to play with it to get it out, when it finally came out, it wouldn't go back to 2nd or to first without a bit of play. It has only done it twice. The first time it did it briefly, I thought maybe I did something wrong. The second time it was obvious, I had to pull over because I couldn't get it out of 2nd, and until it finally did, I kept it on the higher gears until I got home. Now it has completely gone away and it hasn't done it again. It's weird because it only does it on 2nd and once it does then 1st starts acting up. What is weird is that it only does it for those two gears weather the car is on or off. Is this a problem with loose linkage or maybe clutch engament? Or is this a bigger problem with the inner workings of the gears in the transmission? It's gone now, but eventually this is going to be a bigger problem if I don't address it now. Any suggestions would be appriciated. Thanks.

 

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Thanks, but no thanks to the dealer. Does anyone else have any kind of theory on this? It hasn't done it again. But what I really want to know is if this is a problem with the tranny or the clutch. I haven't seen any major problems with the 5-speed before, so that is why I was thinking the clutch. Thanks.

 

Well, we can all agree that when you have a problem that is intermittent, the dealer never can find it. Next time it gets stuck I guess I can take it in. It's only happened twice for about 5-10 min. each time. I don't want them to do a diagnostic, find nothing, then turn around and charge me $$$ for nothing. Maybe if I was under warranty still. But even then, they charged me the full price when I had premature clutch wear, or complained about the clutch chutter way back in 99' 30K miles after I got my car. Oh well.

 

well everytime i don't want to take risk with my manual trans i always depress the clutch and rev the engine on nuetral before i go into 2nd. (usually from a higher gear) because it just makes the transition much smoother. But ur problem is from 1st to 2nd? i don't know if that would help?