Hey all, all the threads on this topic are very old but I wanted to say thanks for the tip of putting it in 2nd gear and then into 1st gear, it goes into gear much easier. Some people would hate it but I kind of like all the quirks about this car.

I've been having the same issue where my gear pops out of first and makes a big noise. Finally looked it up on here and found out its a common problem for early cars. I checked mine, and what do you know, its #4704 made in July 2003. I have one of the earliest crossfires!

My question is, is the synchro repair worth it? Sounds expensive and I've seen several people comment that it still happened after they had it done. Mine does it very intermitently, which is good and bad. Just never know when its gonna do it....gonna try the 2nd->1st shifting trick for a while and see if that'll stop it. Need to look up the VIN history too, with it being so early it may have had the synchro repair done already by the first owner when it was under warranty.