Firstly, I know next to nothing about cars (this is my first car). Its a manual 2002 protege and I recently got it from the dealer. It test drove beautifully on a cool day. However, today about 20 mins into the drive home the gears became much harder to shift to the point where I couldn't physically get it into 1st. Also the weather is extremely hot today. After leaving the car for about an hour I tested it again and it shifted into first perfectly, but even after the car being on a couple minutes it became increasingly difficult to shift it. Have spoken to the dealer and waiting for him to get back to me.

Just wanted another opinion on what might be wrong. Also was hoping its not something too serious (or indicative of a more serious issue). The car only has around 100,000 km (60,000 miles).

If you need some more information just let me know and thank you very much.

 

Brett: you likely need to flush the hydraulic fluid and make sure there is no air in the system. If that does not cure the symptoms you may need to replace either / or and maybe both: the master cylinder and the slave cylinder.
The clutch itself should be fine because you did not report any roughness or slippage, or growling noises when the pedal is depressed.

By the way: the hydraulic fluid is brake fluid. When they flush the clutch hydraulic they should also flush the brake system. Both systems share the reservoir on top of the brake master cylinder. You don't want the new fluid being contaminated by the old brake fluid. Besides the brake fluid should be replaced every 3 years or so anyway.