I wonder if any of you with the manual transmission notices noticeble gear whine in first gear. By noticeable, I mean, all the other gears are pretty silent, I notice whine when decelerating, and when the car is coasting pretty fast ~20-30mph with clutch depressed while in first gear. I have heard that first gears are usually louder because they have a straighter cut, and the difference in sizes requires more lash, but if other ppl don't have it, I mite schedule a drive along with the dealer mechanics.

Also, from 1800-2200 rpm in 4th or 5th when its acccelerating I've noticed a faint metallic rattling from the front of the car, I'm assuming its some sort of loose metal in all the exhaust heat shield, or something in the exhaust's natural frequency, its only noticeble in 4th and 5th, cuz in other gears you rev throught that range too quickly to hear anything.

Also, its been 4500 miles, and my oil is like so clean, like light brown ish ... new engines are just getting better and better. Right now I'm debating wether to use 5w30 or 10w30, its not really cold enough to make a difference (does 5w30 offer alot more cold starting protection then 10w30), although I'm going to go snowboarding, but even then 10w30 flows fine cold and I'll be driving it up hard up the mountain so id like the extra protection and higher burnoff temperature of 10w30 ... i've heard manufacturers recommend lower weights to improve their overall gas mileage ... but then again, alot of the new engines use 5w20 ... so yea, sorry for the long post, but if you guys noticed those things ..tell me, cuz if you don't then im going to have it checked out to see if its major.

 

Just wondering: Why are you still in 1st gear while going 20 - 30 mph? The tC's first gear is very short, like a granny gear. It should only be used to get the car moving from a dead stop. Are you sure the whine you are hearing in first isn't the engine reving too high? My tC hits 3000 rpms at 15mph in 1st, so I can't imagine what rpms your car is running if you're still in 1st going 30mph. The tC manual recommends you shift from 1st to 2nd at 15mph, 2nd to 3rd at 25mph, etc.

 

Well it doesn't sound like he's revving that high, only when he pops it back into first while slowing down with the clutch depressed. Still, at that speed 1st is worthless because of the gearing and you shouldn't be accelerating in it unless you are stopped. So I'm not sure what the dilemma is since the situation you describe should not really be happening.

 

As a rule of thumb, you should NEVER downshift into 1st from a higher hear. 1st should only be used to get the car going from a dead stop. As soon as you have sufficient momemtum, you should shift to 2nd. Downshifting into first isn't good on your engine.

 

lol...by 25mph, you should be getting rdy to go into 3rd gear, not coming out of fourth.

For best fuel economy, you should be shifting up at around 3k RPM, and down shifting at about 2-1.7k rpm. Which means you should be out of first by about 10-15MPH. With the tCs shprt first you want to get into 2nd as soon as posible.

 

That sound is possibly your clutch spinning up. If you force a 1st gear while coasting down you engage the gears which inturn spinns the clutch and the same speed your engine would be turning if you where driving in that gear at that speed.

 

Like it's been mentioned, there’s no need to use 1st for anything other than getting going from a dead stop. Downshifting as you are decelerating is fine as long as you leave the clutch disengaged. “Tranny” or “Clutch” breaking, however, is totally unnecessary. Brakes are a lot cheaper to replace than a transmission or a clutch. Most 1st gears are kind of noisy just in general. Really, I wouldn’t worry about it unless you get into an issue of increased volume or a change in your pedal or clutch feel.

 

20-30 mph is WAYYYYYY to fast for normal 1st gear driving. Check the reccomendations in the manual for top speeds per gear. Also, when you downshift to 1st going that fast with the clutch in, you are hearing the tranny synchronizing. Every manual tranny I have owned or worked on exhibits this to some degree, some are just more noticeable. I definitely wouldn't stress on it much.

 

ok lets stop the complaining and flaming on this person...


everything you experience is pretty much normal for a car. and im guesing that your car is newer than mine. my car has well over 12000 miles. yes over 12 thousand miles in 3 months. my car is fully broken in. your car is perfectly fine.

you car will whine louder and louder as you downshift lower and lower. no matter the RPM. it'll jus whine louder.

and as for your oil question. you are on your own. i go snowboarding a lot too and the air temp gets well below 20* but im not going to change my oil. i think 5w30 is good enough.