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Well Blake, hate to bring you bad news, but I think that Fixit2003's response was correct--our transmission is probably shot.

And, not to make you feel too guilty, but your insistance on downshifting probably caused the problem.

When you shift, manual transmissions have small, soft-metal components, called synchromesh, which take the brunt of the forces in an attempt to match speeds of the various components of the transmission. These soft-metal components can last only so long before they wear-out. The more you use them, the faster they wear out.

You can artificially match the speeds of the various components by using a technique called double-clutch downshifting. That technique is was technique number two in my previous eMail. The technique may seem impossible to master--and it is difficult to learn--but in the end it become second-nature.

Unfortunately, technique one, which you are using, literally, doesn't do anything.

So, until you learn proper double-clutch downshifting, I would use your brakes, rather than your tranmission, to slow your car down.