My 2002 SE 6-speed makes a howling sound when the clutch is being engaged. This only happens in 1st gear from a dead stop and only after driving the car for about 30 minutes in traffic. The rest of the time the clutch is quiet while being engaged. Does this sound like a problem or is it normal in Maximas? The car drives fine otherwise.

 

Probably nothing to worry about. With a deeper gear (ie 1st gear), there are more teeth on the gear, therefore you may get more noise or howl. This isn't all too uncommon. My 96 SE has done this since I bought it 3 years ago with 30K miles. I'm at 80K miles, 50 1/4 mile blasts, stock clutch, and I'm still doing fine.


Dave

 

Do not keep the clutch depressed while at a standstill.
Put the transmisson in neutral and release the clutch while waiting for traffic lights. That will help. My wife used to get that
horroble noice in her 92 Accord while in traffic. She changed her style and the clutch is still going... 160K original clutch.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Just as a precaution, I'm taking it back to the dealer to look things over. Just out of curiousity, how is your 6-speed clutch behaving? Is it quiet at all times or does it howl now and then when being engaged? I assume there are a lot of manual tranny Maxima drivers in this forum so I would expect a lot of replies. Give me your feedback one way or the other.

Thanks,

Lou

 

I just picked up my 99 SE 5spd last Monday and I ran into a similar noise/howl just as ljb0002 described...

I stopped by my parent's place this weekend on the way back from a road trip with the gf and my dad took a look at it (old-school motorhead ). He said it could be the clutch throwout bearing going bad??

I couldn't get it to do it today but I'm going to keep a close eye on it...

 

Well guys, here is the answer. After many months of living with it, I learned how to make the squeal happen. I took it to the dealer today, drove the car for the service manager and showed him the noise. Nissan replaced the clutch today. I'll be picking it up in a couple of hours and hopefully the noise will be permanently gone.

This is how I do it. Keep in mind that the car can be driven for days without making the sound. I stop the car on any fairly steep hill, even a short one, and slowly release the clutch while holding about 1.5K RPM. The car should roll back a foot or two while the clutch is engaging. The first time or two you get the car moving the noise may not happen. Stop the car and try again. The clutch warms up pretty quickly when treated like this and will begin to make the howling sound. In my case it always worked after 3 or 4 starts.

Good luck and get your clutches replaced,

Luis

 

How does your car shift?

 

Glad you got yours replaced.

I finally took my 99 into a local Nissan dealer and they said it was clutch groan/howl and that it was "normal" and didn't need to be replaced (read: won't replace it)

Whatever. At 53k miles I'm just going to wait until it gives out and then throw the ACT clutch in it.

 

The shifter was somewhat stiff for the first 2 or 3k miles, specially from 2nd to 3rd. Since then it has smoothed out and until yesterday when I got the new clutch it was shifting really nicely. I noticed today, with the new clutch, that there is tiny bit of notchiness. I think the engagement point is a bit lower with the new clutch and I have to make sure the clutch is fully depressed when I shift. I think I just have to adjust a little to the new clutch. So far the new clutch feels great. We'll see if the howl returns.

Luis

 

My clutch makes a noise, after being warmed up and only going from a stop in 1st. I had thought it was my poor use of the clutch but that is probably not the case (my 89 lasted to almost 110KM before I had to replace it). The noise I hear is part rattle and part screeching sound. Does this sound familiar.

 

looks like u had the dying squirrel sound

nissan has serious issues with its 2k2 maxima clutch.

the plates heat up and then warp... for 600 bux a clutch i would expect higher quality

this problem was known to nissan in january of 2k2, but they still havent issued a recall (dont think they will)

 

I had exactly the same problem with my 5 spd. Nissan tech said I should not ride the clutch as much, work out a launching technique to launch with lower RPMs..Lower RPMs my *** when you got full cabin of passengers and you gotta start moving uphill. I got really sick of this coming on everyday, and I ....worked my clutch in. I revved the engine up to about 4000RPMs and rode the clutch while in gear for a few minutes. Doing this one-two times is not going to bring major damage, but the effect is very positive. I have not hear that damn noise in months, knock on wood, and my clutch is like new.

 

It sure does. That is exactly what my clutch was doing until Nissan replaced the clutch. Make sure you can reproduce the noise and take it to your dealer. My understanding is that if you can make the noise occur in their presence they will replace the clutch.

Good luck!

 

I realize this now. The hard part is going to be reproducing the noise. I will try your suggestion about making the noise happen before I go.

 

Ajahearn, take a careful look through this thread. There's quite a bit of material covering this issue:

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....hreadid=113549

 

I had read part of the other thread but its gotten a lot longer now. My problem is only shifting into 1st (some people reported problems with reverse). I believe it to clearly be a clutch problem because overreving the engine calms it down. I have not experienced any slipping. I'm going on vacation soon. My plan upon returning is to try the suggested method for reproducing the problem. Then I will remove my FSTB/RSB to eliminate any chance of an issue. Then try to get the service department to accept the issue. I have had mixed responses with this service department. The last few though have been pretty good so hopefully this won't be a nightmare.

The only other concern I have is several people have reported that the fix is sometimes worse then the problem. We'll see.

 

why dont you try to burn your clutch a few times, sort of break it in? It worked for me.

 

I'm assuming that by burning the clutch you are expecting that by wearing down the clutch plates I will eliminate the noise. Its possible but then I'd be concerned that I wasn't simply prematurely wearing my clutch out. The noise sounds loud enough to convince me that it would take a lot of wear to eliminate it. But I will keep it under advisement.