Geza

Hello!

My 88' Maxima just reached the 200,000 milestone. For about 6-8 months I have been hearing a whining noise coming from the transmission (5sp. manual) louder and louder.

The pitch of the noise is linear with the speed of the car, faster I drive higher the pitch is, no matter which gear I have the tranny in. (If I let the car cruise by having the gas pedal at the dead center, just enough to not to accelerate or decelerate, the whining sound is gone. But it does whine during accelerating, at steady speed and decelerating.)

The whining itself is not steady (even if the speed of the car steady), but it does have a "excentric" side tone like: whanna-whanna-whanna.
(next time I am going to record the sound with a tape recorder and post it here as an mp3 file!

So, my best guess is, that one gear of the differential gave up. (not bad at 200000 miles). I can remember, that first I noticed this sound after I had my clutch replaced at a not too expensive shop, and my guess is/was that probably they weren't professional on all level, and who knows if they didn't use a heavy duty hammer to drive the driveshafts back in the tranny.

Anyway, I decided to write a post here asking for tipps and ideas on what do you guys recommend for me to do:

Should I have my complete tranny/diff replaced or it is better to have it rebuilt? Dos someone know a reliable source for rebuilt trannys? I personally don't have the shop resources to replace it myself, that's why I am not asking for detailed repair tipps in this case.

I bought my Maxima in 97 with 80,000 miles for $5500 because it was salvaged.

Now, 7 years later I am not sure if I should invest more money in my car or I should sell it. I've replaced a lot of stuff in my car, have a detailed Ms Excel spreadsheet of all the repairs and replaced parts broken down by date and mileage in case someone would like to see it.

So, what do you think?

Geza
Los Angeles, CA

Drjmaxx88

There are a lot of import salvage places in LA, how much for a replacement trany?
You should probably take it back to the shop and see if they can fix it. Sounds like they were in a hurry maybe they forgot something. But if the noise started right after you went there then they should take a crack at it,for free.

maximase86

iTrader: (24)

Finding a used tranny with a good warranty is your best bet. Just call around for quotes. I got my tranny for about $435 when I had to replace it...you can probably find it for cheaper. From the sounds of it, it's the differential or a main bearing that's going. www.car-parts.com is a good place to check.

S