I've got one of the first ones and have almost 28000 miles on it, the only thing I noticed in the transmission was a slight notch between 1st and 2nd gears. Hasn't been enough of a problem to me to need to get it fixed. I think a lot of the problems that people talk about on the transmission for the car is related to inexperience, and or abusive driving techniques. This car does not need to be jammed from gear to gear, it's not going to make it any faster, I have had cars where shifting required double clutching because there were no synchronizers in the transmission. Also people need to get used to the cable shift mechanism, it's not solid rods.