I test drove an 04 GTO yesterday. The car had 110K miles on it. No grinds going into gears, and the clutch seemed normal to me, but what caught my attention is, trying to shift into 1st, 6th, and reverse, it seemed like the shifter did not want to be moved to the left and right enough. Once I was able to muscle it over far enough, it would fall into gear easy. It just seemed a little out of the ordinary, as I have never drove a T56 that did this. Any idea as to why this could happen? Could something be worn out in the shifter since it's got so many miles on it? It had the stock shifter as far as I know.

TIA

 

So is it 1st 2nd/ 5th 6th and R all hard to get into? Cuz if 5th and 2nd are easy to get into I dont think it'd be the shifter not wanting to move left or right. My 93 had 130k miles on the stock shifter it didnt act like that it was just loose as hell, Id end up punching my radio tryin to get it in reverse, shifter in hand lol

 

I agree, it sounds like you have shifter wear issues.

 

2nd and 5th go in fine, from what i remember....well, on second thought, that might not be correct. It still made me go 1-4 when I accelerated normally, so the only time I used 2nd was on a hard acceleration pull, and I probably wouldn't have noticed if I had to pull it hard to the left to get it into 2nd. And, I think I only used 5th once, otherwise I skipped it, so it very well could have went in hard to that gear as well.

So, do you guys think that if I bought this car, and replaced the shifter with an aftermarket one, it would cure the problem?

 

The GTO's have a big goofy shifter that is known to have issues. You'll have to drop the tranny to swap shifters thanks to the ****-poor design of the shifter hole. You might want to check the price of the GTO aftermarket shifters too. I've never actually checked myself, but I've heard they're $400-500

 

Good lord, that right there is probaly why they are selling the car, they dont wanna pay 400$ + however much to drop the tranny...I'd avoid that car OP unless its a hell of a deal

 

Thanks for the help guys, but my buddy put an aftermarket shifter in his gto, and he didn't drop the transmission...it was actually about a 30 minute job...??????