I've never daily driven a manual trans car before, so I'm still learning some of the tricks to it. One of the things I noticed is that when going from neutral to reverse, the transmission grinds a little. Not a ton, but it's definitely not the coolest sound your car can make, backing out of a parking spot. I remember reading a trick a while back to avoid this, and it works well. Before putting it in reverse, put it in 5th gear, then go straight back to reverse, without lifting the clutch pedal. Works every time, no more grinding.

 

Or you can hold the clutch in for 10sec and then put it in reverse. Since reverse isn't synchronized, you have to wait until the tranny speed slows way down (stops) before you should put it in reverse. Putting it in 5th before reverse doesn't really do anything besides force you to take more time before putting it in reverse to avoid the grinding.

 

Well if all your doing is pulling out of your driveway or parking space, then after flooring the clutch to start the car, just keep it floored and put it into reverse. Before the gears even start to move at all.

Not sure how our T5's vary with the reverse grinding issue, but thats just my experience

 

even if the clutch is fully depressed, when in neutral the trans innards will spin with the input shaft due to light drag from the clutch assembly. Putting the trans into a synchronized gear(1-5), will slow or stop everything enough to place the trans into the un-synched reverse

 

this is all true, though 4th gear will not always work, 1,2,3,5 will all ve fine.

 

i always use 2nd, then reverse, just a habit i got into