BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT AND ULTIMATE DECISION I MADE was to trade it in to CarMax when the fluid and engine were warm enough to pass a shallow trade in exception. Therefore I knew when it was time to cut it short. I bought an A pillar pod and mounted the oil temp gauge. To help keep me posted on how much heat is still collecting inside the trans, I ran a little engine oil thermostat into the return side of the inter cooler. It did ACTUALLY give me a decent to reasonable extra amount of drive time. In addition I had a push/pull fan installed behind it to further aid in the cooling of this engineering failure. In fact, instead of just having them install a universal trans cooler and mount I went the extra distance and used a front mount inter cooler roughly the size of an SRT 4’s. Upon hearing this, I was able to convince some of the guys on their off time to extend the cooler to a remote location. This helps if your just running around short distances and gives you a an extra hour or so before the car is whining, losing rpm’s and basically falls on its face. They found by mounting a moderate size external transmission cooler it will extend the drivability for a “roll of the dice” style length of time. And “Band-Aid” it is as it’s not a permanent fix. They said they have heard of the problem and devised a “Band-Aid”. To my rescue, my brother has a bunch of friends that work for “HOONIGAN” Motorsports in California. There’s also CVT specific shops that sell HD enhanced CVT’s and that as well puts it up near 3K before installation. Most trans shops quote according to damage done, and can range from $1,400-$3,200. So there a majority of us sat on the side of the road wondering what the “eff” just happened. This caused the fluid to heat up and foam and lose all its abilities as a lubricant as well as not cycle through the underpowered cooling system correctly, as it was no longer a fluid, but a foam mess. The fluid was more often than not overfilled during maintenance by the techs, or the fluid change all together ignored by the owner. Allegedly the reason Nissan has been so shy about this is the stock trans cooler did not cool its capacity down quick enough, especially on hot summer months. So they ducked and dodged when they could, and sparingly paid out when they had to. Again, just repeating from a reputable source Nissan really didn’t want to admit fault. Unfortunately that might just be enough to drop the trans for inspection, then it’s up to your pocket book. There was a recall on the 2010 Altima, Murano, and maybe Rogues.? Nissan very hesitantly offered about $1,000.00 toward repairs. Then just as said before, the bands and cones wear down. That transmission fluid breaks down over time, and is further accelerated by excessive heat. The forum member a few threads before me is absolutely correct. They have always been good to me back when I was swapping T-5’s to T-56’s. That led me to calling a transmission shop I used to use back in the hay day of American cars. I have been on tons of these Nissan forums as well as spoken to far too many dealerships who purposely find another task to take up. Didn’t beat the crap out of it, as it is a 2.5 and there would be no point to treat it like a sports car. I treated my Altima about as best you can living in a major city.
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