So... I recently traded in my 2012 Mazda 2 for a 2014 CX-5. It was hard to let go of the 2, but I needed something with a little bit more (OK, a lot more) room inside for my growing wedding photography business and getting a compact SUV or crossover with a proper manual transmission sealed the deal for me. I absolutely loved it on the test drive. I'll admit, I was disheartened a little by the lack of trim options, colors, and accessories available for those of us who opted for the third pedal, but it still didn't take me away from wanting it. It definitely helped make the decision getting S plan pricing through Mazdaspeed Motorsports Development, too...
Anyways, fast forward to now. I've had the CX-5 for just shy of two weeks. It's got about 550 miles on it.
The manual gearbox on it is great. It runs smoother than some of the automatic counterparts in its class that I have had as rentals for work. I have one quirk with it though... It seems like fourth gear is really hard to shift in to at times. Third and fifth can sometimes be the same way, but fourth is the worst. It just completely locks you out of the gear and you have to pop it in neutral, clutch out/in, then you can get into fourth again. It seems like if I apply slight lateral force on the shift lever towards 6th (ever so slightly) it goes into gear without drama.
Now, here I though maybe mine was an oddity. So I went to a different dealer and test drove one of the CX-5's on the lot with the 6MT and it did the same exact thing.
Is it maybe that just the shift cable needs adjusted? I know in both my Mazda 3 and Mazdaspeed 3 there is an adjustable linkage on the one shift cable, however it seems to deal more with leverage into 1/2 or 5/6 and not so much affects 3/4 because those are a vertical up/down motion on the selector.
Thoughts? I'll probably reach out to the dealer if it doesn't get easier here soon. I figure they will probably tell me it needs to break in or something with the low miles on it as of now.
Anyways, fast forward to now. I've had the CX-5 for just shy of two weeks. It's got about 550 miles on it.
The manual gearbox on it is great. It runs smoother than some of the automatic counterparts in its class that I have had as rentals for work. I have one quirk with it though... It seems like fourth gear is really hard to shift in to at times. Third and fifth can sometimes be the same way, but fourth is the worst. It just completely locks you out of the gear and you have to pop it in neutral, clutch out/in, then you can get into fourth again. It seems like if I apply slight lateral force on the shift lever towards 6th (ever so slightly) it goes into gear without drama.
Now, here I though maybe mine was an oddity. So I went to a different dealer and test drove one of the CX-5's on the lot with the 6MT and it did the same exact thing.
Is it maybe that just the shift cable needs adjusted? I know in both my Mazda 3 and Mazdaspeed 3 there is an adjustable linkage on the one shift cable, however it seems to deal more with leverage into 1/2 or 5/6 and not so much affects 3/4 because those are a vertical up/down motion on the selector.
Thoughts? I'll probably reach out to the dealer if it doesn't get easier here soon. I figure they will probably tell me it needs to break in or something with the low miles on it as of now.
