And suddenly, I can't shift into first with my '97 Saturn SL2.

[intheflow]

3. I seems like it happened pretty suddenly.

It's an older car, and I've had my moment of "don't find it, grind it," but I've been driving stick for almost 30 years now. I had a clutch go out in one of my first cars, and I remember it being more gradual. I didn't notice anything, then went to visit my son a few weeks ago in another state & drove his new car around for a bit. When I returned to driving my car, I did notice shifting was harder, but his shift feels ridiculously loose to me so I I just figured it was my readjusting to driving my car. It really wasn't hard to shift, I didn't have to jam the stick into gear or anything, it moved smoothly through the gears. But today, after work, I had to jam it hard into first, so hard I jut gave up and drove starting from second.