Thrashing my 1.3 around today reminded me of my only gripe (apart from the constantly flattening battery - Cobra alarm no doubt). My car is lowish mileage (30K) and I would say hardly run in, but.............. The gear lever works perfectly but is stiff in action - are they all or do I need to investigate? Seems odd to me that Daihatsu would make a sporty little car and not have a snappy gear lever.
A quick addendum to my gear lever comment. I had both a Daihatsu Sirion and a Cuore, both gear levers were light and excellent.
Mine's pretty stiff too but it's also really tight. I think to get the throw to be so short they might've had to make them a bit stiffer
Mine is also stiff. When I first got the car, I took it to a mechanic and they lubricated the various linkage hinges which made a slight difference. Plan B was going to be to drill out the rivets and replace with locking nuts that could be adjusted but I never bothered in the end. I find mine is smoother when cold and then stiffens once things warm up. I’ve already changed the gearbox oil so it’s not that. In the end, I just got used to it and the engine has enough torque that you don’t really need to rag it through the gears.
1st is sometimes stiff and 2nd slightly rougher than 3rd to engage and sometimes I can barely enter first unless I'm at a full stop (clutch to the floor)(sometimes a very light tap of the throttle helps) The rest are noticeably smoother. My Copen has just done 48,000 miles. Sporty cars tend to have notchy and more mechanical feeling gear levers than a more normal car, so it could be by design. I also found this information on another forum: "1st and Reverse often don't have syncro clutches on the gears. A lack of these makes it difficult to select the gears while the car is moving. However they shouldn't make a difference when the car is stationary. There again, you probably never select the other gears while the car is stationary. – HandyHowie Jan 29 '16 at 10:52" " The locker ring is designed to stop a gear being selected until speed of the gears have been fully synchronised. The selector ring is normally rotating at a speed relative to the vehicle speed, which is due to the selector ring being connected to the output shaft. When the selector ring pushes against the locker ring, the locker ring is able to start rotating and position itself correctly to mesh with the selector ring. However, when selecting first gear while stationary, the selector ring will not be turning and so if the teeth of the selector ring and the blocker ring do not align sufficiently to allow them to mesh, resistance will be felt in the gear selector. Pushing harder on the selector will force the blocker ring to move a little and aid alignment. When this happens, allowing the car to move slightly will usually aid alignment and allow the gear to select easily. So this resistance to selecting first gear is nothing to do with a worn synchromesh, but is more than likely to do with the design of the locker ring and selector ring." Fourm that I got this info from ---> What does it mean to have a stiff first gear? Maybe this will answer your questions.
Yeh, I also find reverse a little awkward to select, forward gears are smooth to engage once moving, though as before said the gear box feels tight. I would think judging by others mentioning the same thing, this must be design. That is the good thing about this club, you discover other people's Copen, have similar quirks to yours, which helps a lot in not over thinking things.
One of the gear linkages under the car is right behind and almost touching the exhaust. I missed this one the first time i lubed all the linkages but second time round i caught it and made a huge improvement.
