What's up with my car's gearbox?

Just today my car (Y reg Kia Shuma) has started behaving rather oddly. When the engine is cold it behaves just fine, but once the engine is warm, it really doesn’t like being below about 2500 RPM. If that happens, the gearbox makes ‘chr-rrrr-rrrr’ noises. This makes driving smoothly and slowly very difficult.

I think it’s the gearbox because if I put the car in neutral, the noises disappear. My car didn’t used to do this. It’s done less than 30K miles. It normally does 30 miles a week, with the odd 100-mile trip. What’s happenned?

First of all, is it an automatic or manual transmission? If the latter, are you shifting down when you go slower or the rpms drop?

If it’s an automatic, my guess would that it’s not shifting down itself and needs attention and adjustment. Maybe Kia owners have better ideas.

First thing you should do is contact the dealer (I would say to check their website, but I just looked, and it appears you now have to pay to get this kind of info) and see if there’s a recall affecting this. It’s quite common for computer controlled transmissions (which almost all manual and auto trannys are these days) to have glitches which have to be corrected. Chrysler was notorious for this situaton for a decade or so, in fact, it was so bad, that it was recommended that you yank the factory control module and replace it with an aftermarket model, since they were vastly superior. If you’re lucky, there’s a relatively minor computer problem that will be covered by recall/warranty. If you’re not lucky, then be prepared to shell out big bucks. A computer or a mechanical problem can both run about the same cost (expen$ive $$$$).

You certainly should get the car looked at by someone who knows what they’re doing quickly, because you might be doing expensive damage to the tranny by driving the car.

It’s a manual, and the RPMs go back up - as they should - when I shift down. But so does the engine noise.

It turned out to be the exhaust - a baffle near the engine was loose.

Dude, you got lucky! That’s a cheap fix!