Ok, so I always wondered what the heck you guys were talking about on here when you were speaking of the transmission solenoid TSB...however, I just found out first hand. I had never had the problem at all for 112,000 miles. The last few months I've noticed a small 500 rpm jump between 2-3. It wasn't an all the time thing. Well Friday, out of the blue, the transmission was first running really bad...like it was slipping back and forth between 2-3 under moderate load...and then all of a sudden it was fine. It ran like brand new. The shifts were clean, crisp, and I was happy. Well...I let my step mom drive it over the weekend, and now it's not even driveable. I drove it yesterday and when cold (it's like -3 here over night), it has a very hard time going from 1-2 unless shifting manually, and will not fully engage into 3rd. Big problem...just going 30...with a cold engine, the rpm's were sitting pretty at 4000 RPMS. I can't have that. So I'm on here to ask you guys just how severe your solenoid and VB problems were. The Nissan dealer quoted me $3296 for a full tranny replacement without looking at it. I was just curious and asked for peace of mind sake even though, I didn't really get it. I had noticed a few things and I just wanted to see how many of you have experienced these problems and what diagnosis they lead too...

- High pitch squeal or whistle between gears on a hard shift.
- Deterioration in shift quality and to what extreme.
- Loss of reverse at some point or other that mysteriously fixed itself and never came back...like it was stuck in a forward gear or in between. (My car did this one night, and had to be pushed back manually by me.
- A blinking light OD light that blinks 5 times but goes off and doesn't stay on intermittently. It's only happened a few times.

I spoke to the shop and I told them that if they think its the solenoid or TCM, that I would do the work myself...buuuut I'm wondering what you guys are thinking. Has anybody had a situation closely resembling this one? If so...how much did cost and did it completely solve the problem? Thanks a bunch guys! Any help is very much appreciated. BTW...2000 Nissan SE w/ 112,000, brown tranny fluid after only 15,000 miles...and beaten by my brother and step mother.

 

bump

 

If you get the OD light flashing again, see if you can tell which # flash stays on longer than the others. That will tell what's wrong. If you can't wait, you can take it to the dealer and they can read the error code.

 

Kenshi,

Couldn't he have those codes read by AutoZone or another place for free?

I thought I had read that somewhere. Am I mistaken?

 

Well...here's the update. I took it to a local tranny shop that my buddy's dad works at and he dropped the tranny pan. He ran a bunch of tests for free and they were all inconclusive except for all the shavings in the pan......which lead to the solenoid failure which lead to them taking apart the whole transmission just to find that all of 2nd and 3rd gear were toasted. I was in utter disbelief, they were actually missing cogs. Now...I asked how this would happen and he said that the tranny was just flogged hardcore. So it looks like my brother and my step mom are going to some how cough up the dough to pay the 4000 dollar bill. Yeah that's right 4000 DOLLARS!!!! However, I'm getting a new valve body, new solenoid, new torque converter, new 2nd and 3rd gears, and something else. Pretty pissed though, because I asked them not to do any work on it without asking me because I was actually going to see if I could just find a used tranny and drop it myself but whatever. The guy I was talking to also said that this was the first nissan maxima 2000-newer that they've ever had in the shop and that he's only heard good things about them. I think we all should reconsider how we drive our cars, maybe we wouldn't have these problems anymore. I know I took care of mine, but my rather had the ***** to come out and see he was neutral dropping it and manually shifting it. Another thing...if your tranny fluid looks dirty...CHANGE IT!!!! I'm pretty sure that if the solenoid and the tranny fluid would've been changed 4-5 months ago, this would've never happened. Anyway...good luck and thanks for the help.

 

So what's the plan? Find a used tranny? Go with that lower dealer price? They guarantee their work?

 

Well that's the thing...I gave the go ahead on the work before I found out that I could get a tranny with 70K for 550. I've never done a tranny swap before, but I'm pretty mechanically inclined so I think it may have taken a couple of days but would've been possible. So yeah...4000 bucks. By the time they took the tranny apart, they had completely torn it to shreds on the inside when removing the parts so there was no way I would've been able to safely move it without damaging some of the other mechanical components. It just sucks. I suppose the 4K may be worth it if I NEVER have to worry about the tranny again, but I guess we'll see. I hope everything is true about these cars easily pushing 250K-300K. Otherwise this was a total waste.

 

should've done 5spd swap while u at it.