Hello All,

I joined this forum to share some information with you concerning our transmission woes. I own a 2005 R51, and got vibrations from my trans at 1500rpm at about 50mph during lockup. Dealership couldn't find anything wrong with it, so I demanded a test drive. After the test drive, they admitted it was the trans and replaced the trans and rad (Pathy had 62,000m on the clock) although the trans fluid showed no signs of coolant being present. - you know the story.

Jump a year, I'm at 88,000m and I'm now starting to hear the distant but familiar vibrations at around 50mph!! - for all those who don't know, it sounds like you drive over a rumble strip or bad patch of asphalt on the highway. A noise to which I am now in tune too. I took the Pathy to the dealer and had the lead tech test drive with me. He was 40% sure at this stage, what with the road conditions, that it was the trans again, and recommended that I drive it a while longer as to allow it to get worse, for easier ID. We had a nice chat about the problems and what the coolant could do to the solenoid valves etc. He went on to explain that the replacement transmissions from Nissan are refurbished and not new!! so there could be a problem with my new trans, as he said the dealership was unaware of what Nissan actually replace during refurb. He also admitted they had replaced 8 transmissions last month alone.
Luckily I purchased an extended 100,000m warranty and have another 12,000m or before it expires. My goal is to tow the crap out of it with my mates 5,000lb boat, up every hill in the Appalachians, until its FUBAR'ed, then get a new transmission (refurb) and sell the frikken thing quick.

G.

FWIW, every manufacturer from Chevy to Mercedes uses reman transmissions for warranty/repair. My neighbor is a plant manager of a factory that remans for several major manufacturers and they're basically as good as a brand new unit. They really only re-use the case, install all new guts, and it's all done in a sterile environment. A shop could never rebuild one as well or as cleanly. The problem is if there's some inherrent design flaw it will carry through if the "guts" are the same.

Ending up with the same problem with two transmissions makes you wonder if there's not an input shaft alignment issue or something like that. Obviously not a huge number of these transmissions are failing every 20-50k miles so it would be quite ironic to get two of them in a row.