Second gear grinding & remedy

[SSpeckerwood]

i believe its a opel-80 or opel-70.

either way, its a single stage viscosity and it doesn't say Redline on it, thus making it inferior oil. lol

 

[Ruggiero626]

Agreed lol. Unfortunatly the nearest shop to pick some up is 40 miles away. Fortunatly it's 5 miles away from my car groups weekly meet =P. I'm going to pick some up this weekend, and have them replace it.

 

[SSpeckerwood]

from here out i will be doing it myself. i wanted to make sure the dealer did it once to get on file thats what they put in there.

 

[gsxr1000]

how often do you plan on changing the oil?

 

[B-radly81]

I know its a real thin dark red oil

 

[theenico]

i believe its a opel-80 or opel-70.

either way, its a single stage viscosity and it doesn't say Redline on it, thus making it inferior oil. lol

It's 70W. The P/N is 19259104 in the US and 19259105 in Canada for 1qt/.946ml.

 

[SSpeckerwood]

I'll probably change it every 20,000 miles or so.

 

[theenico]

That interval sounds about right. The Redline change is on my to do list.

 

[SSpeckerwood]

I may do every other oil change. It's easy to do.

 

[theenico]

20,000 would be every other oil change for me.

 

[SSpeckerwood]

Same here. Lol

 

[Chevrolet Customer Care]

the dealer i bought my sonic from is a super cool one.

the redline meets or exceeds GM's requirements. i'm going to bring the oil to them.
I'd change it myself, but for $30 their going to do it and i have the piece of mind that it will still be under warranty.

We're thrilled to hear that you have such a great relationship with your dealership! Thanks for such a positive post

Best,
Sarah (Assisting Vanessa)
Chevrolet Customer Service

 

[Chevrolet Customer Care]

This may be a dumb question, but how do you go about having the dealer put in another brand of fluid? I'd have thought they would just use their specified GM oil for the car. I ask because I'm going to take it back to the dealer soon and if they can't fix the problem (again...) I'm wondering if that will help my situation. I'm not comfortable doing it myself or I would.

Our apologies if this reply is coming a bit late - were you able to get everything squared away on your Sonic? Let us know if we can look into anything further.

Regards,
Sarah (Assisting Vanessa)
Chevrolet Customer Service

 

[Mighty Mouse]

Mark down another person for the grind on the 1-2 shift. Seems to also only happen under spirited driving conditions. The gear oil fix sounds promising but getting the dealer to replace it to preserve the warranty is going to be interesting.
Still this car should be able to pull off shifts up to the rev limiter. The limiter is there to protect you from over revving the engine. If it wasn't meant to be revved that high the the limiter would be set down to a lower rpm.

 

[SSpeckerwood]

The transmission can handle the shift. Its the 70 weight oil from the factory that can't.

 

[LS1notFOUND]

How far off the throttle are you guys backing it down when spirited shifting, leave the throttle open a bit and it will go right in and chirp the tires. I did a little 1-2 grind a few times but more throttle helped.

 

[SSpeckerwood]

i've done NLS from 4900-5000rpm's and that seems to be where it gets the smoothest shift.

 

[sdgdf]

Never ground 2nd, though its always had resistance. It gets better once the car is warm. Double clutching seems to help a lot, and not just with 2nd but all the other shifts as well.

The 6-speed Getrag in the Sonic doesn't seem to have enough synchros to be a performance transmission. Especially for going 1st-2nd, which has the largest gap of any shift.

 

[LS1notFOUND]

In order to get the synchros working you have to have the revs up. There's an article I read somewhere if I find it again I'll post the link about how they work. But basically its sounded like a really fast slot machine, the more spins the more likely for a jackpot.

 

[J T]

Son of a B..."the grind" has happened to me twice now. Since the second time, I've made sure to push the clutch all the way to the floor and shift before releasing and it hasn't happened again. Funny thing is I couldn't replicate it when I tried.