I noticed, when i didn't have music blasting, that the gear changing sounds rather loud, especially when i have the windows down, doesn't happen all the time, certain gears at different times but i cant find a pattern in it. Also, I don't know whether im just not used to the gears yet coming up from a 182 however first and second gear can be quite jumpy at times too. Anybody have any feed back on this or am i just picking up on things too much?
Have you recently bought the car? I was like this when I first got mine haha.. Asking all these same questions. It seems to be normal buddy, my 250 is exactly the same as are many others on here. Haven't really noticed it with the high gears, but mostly 1st/2nd sitting in traffic etc? It seems to improve alot for me when the box has warmed up a bit. If you're worried change the gearbox oil for piece of mind, but i think it probably won't make a difference. How many miles has the car done? Mines done 40k btw.
A kind of clunky noise? Mine does this, usually when cold and in traffic. I don't worry too much, I remember the getrag on my Focus ST sounded similar at times.
This kind of thread makes me worry less about it, cause my car is doing the same, gearshift can be really heard.
My 250 is the same. I think it's just a clunky linkage design. A short shifter may help tighten things up along with a rear engine mount/torque mount
Thats fine, as long as its not the gear box going to drop its guts all over the A1 at ahem 70 ish mph Thanks Ad
Like all others have said; it's the design.. Horrendous sound. Are there any short shifters for the MK3 except for the CAE which is absurdly expensive?
Mines the same so they didn't even realise it was a problem when realeasing the 265 I bet the 275s the same
My 11 year old daughter reckons I sound like Brian O'Connor in 2 Fast 2 Furious when I change gear in my 250
My 250 is the same. It Sounds soo shonky and loose but doesn't seem to affect anything. Theres a bit of movement when you let off that can be felt through the gearstick but its nothing major. It Doesn't make sense to me !
same for me, I've just had a refurb box put in by Renault and it's the same, sounds horrid. In general now i've done some miles on this box it's getting a lot better than the old one.
I havnt looked into it properly yet but I'm hoping I can modify the oem one to have a shorter throw similar to how they do with mk2 selectors. If I'm successful I'll put a how to up on here. I'll have a gander this weekend if i get time
I have the Vibratechniqs one and the throw feels sharper when accelerating, but the sound is still the same. Brilliant, please do. If you make it work I might be interested in buying a modified part! Too lazy to build my own!
I removed the battery tray and it appears a fairly simple task to shorten the forwards/backwards throw by aprox 1/3 shorter than how it is. Just drill and tap a hole in the shifter arm screw in a ball joint , connect the linkage and your done. However!!! Removing the battery tray is a horrible job. The tray it has the ecu and fuse box attached. The ecu has to be taken out. Quite a few cable tidy's have to be popped out which is a real knuckle scraper and a lot of prying/bending the tray arround everything to get it out. However with patience it only requires basic tools. It goes back a lot easier once you've realised how it comes out. I moved the shifter about by hand and the clunky agricultural noise is the mechanism inside the box. I'm certain that there's nothing can be done with the linkage to stop it.
I did my own investigation too and i came to the same conclusion. It's mainly the shifter shaft that's on top of the box, the one with the big counterweight on it that makes the most noise. Did you notice yours also had a lot of vertical freeplay? On my last 265 i wedged a thick, stiff piece of foam between that counterweight and the bottom of the battery box and it reduced the noise to a great degree. I tried it with my new facelifted 265 and it doesn't seem to have made any difference, but i might just need to position the foam correctly. The other thing that we could do is add some acoustic damping material, but that would keep the box too warm. For those who have stuck their head around the engine bay of a late model Euro diesel passenger car engine, you will know the path i'm talking about (the black felt acoustic dampers fitted over the engines to muffle the clattery, undesirable diesel noise.
