Have a new '12 mazda 3 6spd manual that I've owned for about 2 months. Currently has 2,3XX miles on it. Don't know if anyone else has this problem but occasionally when I'm at a stop and try to put my car into first gear, the shifter just gets stuck. I have slot the car into second gear then retry engaging first. Sometimes it works and other times i just have to start from second. Happened again recently and I was curious as whether I just wasn't giving enough pressure to get into gear, or it it was really stuck. Gave a good deal of pressure (as much as i was comfortable with) and sure enough it refused to go in. Felt like I was trying to shift into a brick wall. I saw a few posts about people having bald syncros and grinding gears when pushing their cars, but i don't really push the car at all. Happened once while going from 3rd to 4th on the highway (kind of scary). Brought it to Paciffico Mazda to have them check it and of course the tech said there wasn't and issue (I tried to explain that it doesn't always happen). The service writer gave me some crap about it being something built into the skyactive technology. Any help would be great!

 

I've had a slight issue fron day one with first gear needing more force to engage, but not all the time. Same with reverse, but that has a different setup.
One way to engage it is to let the clutch out very slowly (or allow the car to roll a bit) and it should pop right in when the gears align.

 

Thanks I'll try that next time. I figured it was just the synchro blockin me from getting in so the gear would just have to move a little but never thought to let the clutch out to line then up. a little scared I might grind the gears but at least the car is under warranty. Have your gear ever started grinding trying to force it into gear?

 

Haven't ground the gears doing that, but ive only let the clutch up like that when going into reverse. It may be a mazda thing since my rx7 had the same sort of issue going into reverse. It needs to be at a complete stop for a second in neutral before it would go into gear easily.

 

Mine never has a problem going into reverse. I ask because my car ended up grinding the other day going into first in traffic my car started grinding really bad. Hasn't happened since but still has me concerned. Was going about 15 mph and comming to a stop and tried to get into first. Car acted like I didn't have the clutch pressed down. I'm really starting to think there may be a major issue with those synchros. If it didn't grind I wouldn't mind being locked out from time to time. I've even gotten use to it and just wrote it off as a quirk my car has but grinding I won't just write off

 

Check your motor mounts.

 

I lost my previous gearbox to this issue. Just suddenly jammed and I could only select certain gears. It was completely buggered and ended up getting replaced by Mazda. This car only had 13K on the clock and wasn't abused. The biggest problem is that I am now experiencing the same issues where it's sometimes hard to change gears and is sometimes catching. Informed the dealer and they would like me to bring it in to demonstrate the issue but it's intermittent and tends to occur in the first 30 minutes of driving so it's not likely to occur once I get there. They also said its a really rare problem so it's hard to tell how many people actually have the problem.