Currently shopping for a new daily for my wife. After test driving the usual suspects in the midsize sedan group she seems to be leaning towards the Maxima. She currently drives a 2014 Sentra that I had to put a trans in just out of warranty (Nissan covered 90% of the bill anyway). I know the early CVTs were very problematic, particularly in the smaller cars. Looking to see if anyone has any experience/ insight with the Maxima CVT over the past few years. If they are still prone to issues I'm probably going to steer her towards a Camry we test drove that has an 8 speed auto.
I haven't had a Maxima, but I've had a 2009 Altima, and 2013 & 2017 Pathfinders with CVT. While I've never had a problem with any of the CVT's in these cars, I did notice a significant improvement in the feel of the transmission from the 2013 to the 2017 Pathfinder, so it was clear to me they had made some improvements.
I worked with a guy who had a new 2018 Rogue. He raved about it. I got a real cheap feeling about the car, like it was trying to be more than it was... hard to explain. He did have all sorts of annoyance type issues with it. It lived at the dealer for the first few months. To be fair the guy was/is a total dickweed though.
Thanks. I'm hoping the problems with the cheaper models was because of building them to meet a price spec instead of an engineering issue that's going to manifest in one that cost twice as much. Even on the lower models it seems to be hit and miss. My buddy had a Versa go over 225k before its trans went. My wifes made it just over 60k of hauling kids to school and the grocery store and died.
My wife has 90k+ on her 2013 Pathfinder. The CVT is still working. It does seem to like fluid changes at the recommended intervals.
My wife test drove many cars in 2019 and she just kept coming back to the Murano Platinum. She loves it and we have had zero problems. I would not have considered the smaller Rogue back then but...now the all new 2021 Rogue is a different animal. We test drove it a month ago and were very impressed. The new Rogue looks light years ahead of the old Rogue. But were still keeping the Murano for now. If your not going to drive the crap out of it the CVT should be fine. Make sure you stick to the factory transmission fluid changes. We've gotten 32mph on the highway. Happy hunting! Just our opinion!
We get AT LEAST three calls a week for Nissan CVT problems, even their reman units the only offer a 1yr /12,000 warranty. Shows they don't have much confidence in their units. Now I believe how you use your vehicle certainly affects the durability of it, but I'd stay away UNLESS they offer a better warranty!
Maybe its the ones in our area but I've had several custo.ers with ussue with Nissan cvt tranny and headgaskets in the later 13-15ish pathfinder. It seems like my snapon scanner pulls minimal information from the computer, Nissan's verbiage in the way they label the stuff the scantily reads is different snd its hard for some ppl to make sense of what the scantool is even showing you. Our local Nissan dealership is less helpful than a brickwall......they won't help or even hardly look parts up for you. Had a pathfinder rust out the bracket in the lift gate cylinder.....after they ordered the wrong parts 4 time I turned to a scrap yard who got it right 1st time over the phone without the part right in front of them. I'm glad to hear that some ppl are getting good luck from their Nissan products, I do like some of there styling
Nissan CVT Transmission Problems: What You Need to Know April 23, 2020 by Tom Harbid Nissan has been in the news a lot lately, and unfortunately, it’s been for all the wrong reasons. Over the course of the last year or two, Nissan’s profits have plunged (and then plunged some more!) as sales of the company’s vehicles have started trending in the wrong direction. Nissan has also been forced to deal with a slew of ongoing Nissan CVT transmission problems in a variety of the company’s vehicles. Those who own Nissans have been forced to pay anywhere from $3,500 to $8,000 on average to fix Nissan CVT transmission problems. This has, in turn, forced Nissan to extend the warranties on many of their cars from five years or 60,000 miles to 10 years or 120,000 miles.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...-a-9-speed-automatic-transmission-155603.html Granted, the Mallfinder is bigger and heavier, but it’s a very similar platform and Nissan decided the CVT is no longer appropriate for it. (I remember when Nissan first tried to sell the public on the idea of a CVT (No shift shock so your wife won’t mess up her lipstick application was the Maxima commercial) and thought ‘that’s a very weak feature, especially when the main advantage was the cheap cost and extra profit for them’. I also thought ‘the Maxima used to be marketed as the 4DSC-four door sports car-and now it has a soulless CVT?!) Patrick
Nissan CVT’s are notoriously not good, but to be fair they did extend the warranty on many of them. I’m not sure if they’ve gotten better or not. Every one that we’ve replaced is a “reman” from Nissan, which always turns out to be new (not a reman), and every one we get it from trans shops that they’ve replaced for us to reprogram the TCM in have been new reman Nissan units too. If there is a TCM software update (almost always is) then it needs to be done to insure the new trans will have some longevity.
Subaru was or is still having issues with the CVT they also upped the CVT warranty .... Im not sure about the whole car.. https://www.ncconsumer.org/news-art...on-warranty-program-for-certain-vehicles.html
The car legitimately had an issue in the front end. In cold temperatures it rode like two bricks banging together. The dealer replaced the struts, then the strut mounts and eventually put loaded struts in it with no difference. I think the issue was ultimately the sub frame mounts. It took the dealer a couple months to get it straight. They returned the car to him 3-4 times claiming it was fixed. The noise was back immediately the next morning each time. Beyond that it was a bunch of superficial crap. The driver's window made a noise when it went down. the steering wheel felt scratchy when turning. That sort of crap.
My wife's car is a 2014 infinity qx60 (pretty sure it has nissan parts in it) and its having trouble with the cvt here lately. Real rough intermittently until you get to around 30 mph. Kind of feels like a torqshift 6 when the int clutch solenoid is sticking.
The QX60 was the JX35 before Infiniti went to their dubious new naming system, and by either name it’s essentially the Pathfinder which, unlike earlier Pathfinders, is a car based, transverse engined crossover. Infiniti is Nissan’s ‘luxury’ brand, and most of their models are twins to something at Nissan. Here’s some discussion of the Pathfinder’s CVT issues.. https://www.pathfindertalk.com/threads/pathfinder-cvt-shuddering-jerking-problem.26146/ Patrick
What sucks is it was smooth as silk until i changed the spark plugs, whenever i had the airbox off a small piece of leaf apparently got on the air filter and on a 30 mile trip it got into the maf sensor . It drove horribly, as they always do with something in the maf. Been rough every since then at low speeds.
