Z4 Manual Shift to 2nd ???

[tstiles]

I picked up an 07 Z4 with 20,000 miles. Shifting to 3/4/5/6 is smooth , but the 1 to 2 shift and the 3 to 2 shift is notchy.

Is this common ?

Can this be cured with an adjustment of the shift cable ?

Anything I'm missing ?

[007MCoupe]

There's so many threads about this. lol

Welcome to the fam! Do you have an M or what? The M crowd will tell just slow down your shift from 1 > 2 and pull down and slightly left. Don't try to throw it into gear and you'll be fine.

[tstiles]

Not an M , just a nice street roadster.

I'm usually pretty EZ on the shift ( I've never even killed a miata gearbox on the track ) , but it's still annoying.

I'll focus on the slightly to the left move and see if it helps

[inTgr8r]

have a look at this thread.....
http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=524589

[Ron Stygar]

Originally Posted by tstiles

I picked up an 07 Z4 with 20,000 miles. Shifting to 3/4/5/6 is smooth , but the 1 to 2 shift and the 3 to 2 shift is notchy.

Is this common ?

Can this be cured with an adjustment of the shift cable ?

Anything I'm missing ?

Remove the air in the clutch system.

[XMetal]

I find that shifting at relatively low revs exacerbate the problem. Try shifting at 4K to 4.5K should be much better.

[bluecobra]

I found that after changing the "lifetime" fluid in mine, it shifts much smoother. Of course it probably has a lot more miles on it than your car.

[esqu1re]

this problem is common on the M cars. Never heard of it being much of a problem on the non M however. Transmission mounts and transmission oil seem to help, as does slowing down the shifts into 2nd. Other than that, it is a design flaw, and there's not much you can do to "fix" it...only mitigate.

[XMetal]

Originally Posted by bluecobra

I found that after changing the "lifetime" fluid in mine, it shifts much smoother. Of course it probably has a lot more miles on it than your car.

Your M coupe don't have their "lifetime" fluid. It should be changed at every inspection, if I'm not mistaken.

[tstiles]

Any particular fluid that makes it shift better ? I'm sure were on to something , when I changed to Red Line MTL my race miata shifted better.

[pyo]

Originally Posted by 007MCoupe

There's so many threads about this. lol

Welcome to the fam! Do you have an M or what? The M crowd will tell just slow down your shift from 1 > 2 and pull down and slightly left. Don't try to throw it into gear and you'll be fine.

Just recently picked up a '04 Z4 3.0i and was also having difficulties with the shift into 2nd. This advice definitely helped and made my shifts into 2nd much better.

btw, 37k on ODO

[Brain]

Originally Posted by tstiles

Any particular fluid that makes it shift better ? I'm sure were on to something , when I changed to Red Line MTL my race miata shifted better.

no reason not to run OEM MTF-LT-2

[gcochard]

I STILL don't know what notchy feels like. 1-2 is just like every other gear change to me, very crisp.

[bigbacon]

my NON M 3.0i is like this going into 2nd but pretty bad going into 3rd. It like sometimes going into 3rd, I am acutally blocked from doing so.

what does the dealer do if you complain about such things?

[XMetal]

Originally Posted by bigbacon

my NON M 3.0i is like this going into 2nd but pretty bad going into 3rd. It like sometimes going into 3rd, I am acutally blocked from doing so.

what does the dealer do if you complain about such things?

They will most likely tell you that it's either "normal" or "can't duplicate".

[ruscoupe]

Personally, I don't experience this problem but I'm familiar with others talking about it and ironically, it seems the original owner experienced the problem as well. What's weird about all this in my case is that when I bought the car he provided me with every piece of documentation ever printed, from all original paperwork to every service. When I started looking at the service receipts I noticed he had complained about the same thing when the car only had like 1k miles. His dealership (BMW Nashville) actually replaced the entire transmission! lol I'd done a PPI on the car but to tell you the truth, had I known about the tranny replacement I might have started fretting about the transmissions in the Z4. So sometimes I guess ignorance is in fact bliss.

Russ

[bigbacon]

Originally Posted by XMetal

They will most likely tell you that it's either "normal" or "can't duplicate".

if they can't duplicate on my car, they didn't even try...

3rd for me, if I try to shift between say 2700 and 3100 rpms. forget it, it justs hits a wall and I have pull the stick back and then just shove it forward again or rev it up higher.

I'll probably take it at some point and see what they say while it is still under the extended warranty.