I have a 96 sw1 5 speed. The problem is down shifting to second gear. It won't go into second shifting from 3,4 or 5 unless I'm almost at a stop. I guess it's the same for first but haven't tryed it. It will go if I'm rolling backwards in reverse. It will go into all gears sitting still and it will sometimes go into second if the engine speed is right with the clutch out when downshifting but I don't like doing that. Would you say the the sincronizers are bad ? I did change the fluid to sinchromesh (penzoils) but didn't help. Any ideas?

 

I'll defer to others who are more familiar with standard shift models but, always a but, there have been a number of people posting on early S car standard shift problems and the solution has been cables stretching or otherwise showing long term wear problems between the lever on the floor and the transmission with concerns that aftermarket cable assemblies are not build correctly too unless purchased from the dealer which just might be a bit iffy thee days considering age and lack of dealers.

 

could be cable related or it could be a synchro issue but it's not one you're gonna fix on a 14 year old car,

don't force it -- you will likely hasten the failure of the shifter bushing
don't shift with the clutch out
Use your brakes instead of downshifting -- they're cheap and easy to replace

 

older 5 speed saturns are well known to have hard shifting mine has this problem
too.. what helped mine a little was syringeing out the dark fluid found in the clutch
resevoire and re-placing it with new DOT 3 a few times i think the clutch slave
cylinders on saturns as they age aren't that great

 

Assuming for the moment the transmission is tired and actually needs some work, an assumption that may be valid. I have had partial success on hard shifting transmissions using motor fix it in a can stuff. A product that generally is better known for removing money from your wallet.
I have a Mustang T-5 retrofitted into a 70 pony car and I use Mobile 1 synthetic 15 W 50 motor oil rather than the automatic transmission fluid the transmission was designed to use. It gives better lubrication under hard use than the automatic transmission fluid for that use. Do not under any circumstance try to use 90 weight transmission oil in a standard transmission designed to use automatic transmission fluid..Oil passages are too small and the oil will not flow starving out the bearings.
On transmissions where the performance has gotten notchy, that is hard to shift and/or synchros acting up, I have bought time on the transmission by adding STP motor oil additive to the transmission. It has to be pumped in on most transmissions and I have used and oil pump can to do it with. A bit of a pain, but it works well enough if U take your time. Will it work for sure? Probably not, but in one case it solved the notchy problem and never had to deal with it again. In another it just cut it back a bit, didn't really do anything much and didn't hurt anything, I put another 30,000 miles on the car and sold it.
But as derf said, the car is long in tooth and magic isn't going to fix it. It won't hurt to try.