2nd Gear Grind 8th Gen Civic

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Bought a Honda Civic SI 1.4L 2010 8th gen the other day. In the test drive, fine. Halfway home, fine.

The other half whenever I tried to go into second, it would grind.

Hmm. New clutch recently installed, and I'm doing everything right.

Take it out for another drive. Absolutely fine. Nothing

Another drive. More or less fine, bar a couple of times.

Today. Halfway on my journey, fine. The other half? Every time, I try and go into second, it grinds. My floor is put to the floor on the clutch and its at the correct RPM. As a stopgap I'm double clutching, but what could be causing this issue? I've read a LOT of threads about this issue, I just don't get why it seems to be intermittent.

Also - would like to reassure you all this wasn't the civic i was going to buy until i found out it had failed the MOTs! This has a full service history and has passed basically every MOT, had clutch replced 2 weeks ago too
 
Private seller. But garage it was serviced comes with a 2 year warranty. (was serviced couiple weeks back). I'd be surprised if they didn't notice it so could it be they've cocked something up
A service came with a 2-year warranty? Seems odd. The individual service items might have a parts warranty, but I can’t see how even a messy gearbox oil change would cause grinding between gears, and it’s not necessarily that the gearbox oil was part of the service schedule for this service. I guess they might not have refilled the gearbox at all, or too low a level, but I’d imagine that causing more than just a 2nd gear crunch.

Secondly, why would a routine service allow a mechanic to notice a 2nd gear issue? They’ll hardly have been changing gears and using more than about 5mph.
 
Secondly, why would a routine service allow a mechanic to notice a 2nd gear issue? They’ll hardly have been changing gears and using more than about 5mph.

Can't really imagine it with a run of the mill vehicle but seen more than one video of mechanics taking a customer's car for a good hoon on a regular service :s and the last one they took my truck for a quick blast.
 
Warranty was on clutch replacement, I guess about as much use as a colander for a bucket.
 
Possibly the gear linkage needs adjustment or is loose if they've done a clutch recently. Was the car used much recently? Sometimes when very cold out pulling second could be an issue but really shouldn't have that issue in the current climate.
 
son had similar on his civic if i remember right he picked up a salvaged box for about 300 and he and his mates disapeared into the garage for a few hours on a saturday and fitted it :) best you can hope for is maybe the last owner knew there was a problem and is possibly prepared to help out with costs ?. maybe get a mechanic to check it in case its not the box? other than that private sale so buyer beware.
 
best you can hope for is maybe the last owner knew there was a problem and is possibly prepared to help out with costs ?

Probably last owner was aware and shifting it before they got lumped with the cost. Pulling figures out the air but probably looking at £150-200 in parts and around the same again in labour to sort or twice that at a main dealer.
 
I just don’t get why it’s fine initially and then starts playing up. I’ve blown most of my cash on this car and insurance. Already quoted £150 just to get a second set of keys made also damage to the front could do with touching up. If I just avoid using second for now like skipping to 3 or double clutching is it okay . I’m not an expert on this as you can probably tell.
 
is the grind definitely coming from the gears?

I have the 2.2 diesel and notice that second gear has some brief crunch or grind when shifting to second but it comes from I feel is underneath the stick. Not sure how to fully describe but it is not from the gears.

Does not happen all the times and I just lived with it.
 
is the grind definitely coming from the gears?

I have the 2.2 diesel and notice that second gear has some brief crunch or grind when shifting to second but it comes from I feel is underneath the stick. Not sure how to fully describe but it is not from the gears.

Does not happen all the times and I just lived with it.

mhmm I’ll have to double check then. I just didn’t know how to describe it so I said “grind”. It’s fine to start off with but as I drive for longer day ten minutes or so in it starts. But then again it didn’t really happen at all the other night
 
I'd say it was worth changing the gearbox oil first, there's something a lot of fast Honda and Subaru boys used i think it's called redline shockproof or something which is really good for worn gearboxes.

But does sound like the synco on 2nd is knackered which im sure the seller knew about, but it's the lottery of used cars so don't expect anything from them as it's a private sale. If you wanted a warranty or any form of come back you need to buy from a dealer even if at this end the market it's not worth much :(
 
Maybe I'm mis-remembering but second gear synchros have always been a problem area for civics. And by problem area I mean it's happened enough times to be relatively widely known about, but doesn't happen to every single car. If you can live with it then don't worry too much; but if you have to rely on the car then it's worth fixing sooner rather than later. Should be plenty of resources to read through on the civic owners forums.
 
Maybe I'm mis-remembering but second gear synchros have always been a problem area for civics. And by problem area I mean it's happened enough times to be relatively widely known about, but doesn't happen to every single car. If you can live with it then don't worry too much; but if you have to rely on the car then it's worth fixing sooner rather than later. Should be plenty of resources to read through on the civic owners forums.
Yeah there's a ton of threads I've read about this, even 9th gen civics seem to have it but especially 8th gen.
 
Lived with it, was annoying but was not worth fixing it. I also changed the gear box oil which kinda helped.
What oil did you use?
I think I can live with it, as long as it's not going to cause any damage. I can just double clutch or go straight into third. I've heard that just having the second synchro repaired and none of the others can actually cause other problems
 
Since there will likely be no recourse with the seller, a fix will either be recon gearbox or rebuild the current one both fairly expensive.

My first thought would be to try some of the redline shockproof oil (whichever is recommended by those more in the know) to see if that alleviates it.

Also stop banging gears in VTEC, yo.
 
Is it only doing this when you are in the latter stage of a longer journey?

ie when the gearbox has heated up nicely?
 
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