$126.84 !!!! That's right !!!! I went in and I asked the service manager how much it would cost me and he said he had a special going on for $129.00. Apparently he didn't know that the Maximas used the special fluid. Needless to say, they realized the mistake and they still honored the price they quoted me. What was the actual price that I was suppose to pay?

 

you got lucky there. it's like $15 per quart.. and how much fluid does the tranny hold?

 

i believe its like 4-5 quarts but i dont know about the auto.

 

i wonder why nissan decided to use a special tranny fluid for the 5sp auto.

 

I told me that it's $16.50 per quart and it takes 6 quarts.

 

special fluid so you only buy it from them, duh! I like to hope b/c our manual/auto is so unique....
I'll be searching for possible alternatives or sales to do it myself. I mean all we do is dump xx amount and replace it w/ xx amount right? they say they can't flush it all. simple dump and replace a portion of it.

 

isn't it like almost $200 for the tranny fluid change at the dealers? i'm with you nismo on the do it myself tranny fluid change. talk about a rip off! time for some research on the org. i know we talked about this a while back.

 

Right. It was a simple dump and refill. They said the tranny doesn't have a return line so you can't flush it.

 

Anyone help me out on this. I've been under the car a few times looking for it. I saw a small black pan on the drivers' side and there is no plug.

 

That is certainly the correct side. I suspect they have it so you have to drop the pan and check and clean the screen.

Shouldn't this all be moved to the lubes section of this site?

 

it's on its way there....

so someone figure out how to dump the tranny fluid before this thread dumps into lube land.

 

i paid like 156.00 for mine to be changed, they changed 5 quarts. You wanna hear something really scary, the service guy told me that he could only change out about 5 quarts, but the trans hold about 20 quarts in it. I really dont think so...he said yes it does....thats kinda scary when the guy working on your car(at a nissan dealer) tells you there is 20 qs. of fluid in the trans. DUH!

 

Truth. Consistent with everyone I've spoken too. That's how it's done.

 

So the tranny hold 5 gallons of fliud, like submerge in it? How does it cool?

 

20 quarts... yeah I guess that would be 5 gallons. sorry, no sleep owns me. I think it is more than 10 though. whatever the total amount, we can't drain it all. 5 in and out, but a good amount is not changed. 5 gallons, my bad

edit:
doesn't even say how much is total. Obviously just draining and refilling is not a flush and some will be left in. At least we know to buy 5 quarts. Would suck to be cheap and buy 4, measure how much we dropped, and be stuck at home trying to get another quart from Nissan.

 

Sorry, I thought 5 gallons make more of an impact than 20qts. I guess I was right! I'll have to confirm w/ my mechanic.

 

From the Nissan service manual:

Changing A/T Fluid
1. Run the engine to warm up the transaxle until the fluid is at full operating temperature of 50-80C (122-176F).
2. Stop the engine.
3. Drain the A/T fluid by removing the drain plug. Reinstall the drain plug to the specified tightness using a new drain washer.
4. Refill the transaxle with new specified A/T fluid through the A/T fluid charging pipe. Always refill the transaxle with the same volume amount that was drained out.
CAUTION:
Do not overfill the transaxle.

Drain plug torque
4 A/T: 29 - 39 Nm (3.0 - 4.0 kg-m, 22 - 29 ft-lb)
5 A/T: 23.5 - 54.9 Nm (2.4 - 5.5 kg-m, 18 - 40 ft-lb)

Fluid grades
4 A/T: Genuine NISSAN Matic “D” ATF (Continental U.S. and Alaska) or
Canada, NISSAN Automatic Transmission Fluid. Refer to MA-10,

5 A/T: Genuine NISSAN Matic “K” ATF. Refer to MA-10, "RECOMMENDED FLUIDS AND LUBRICANTS".

Fluid capacity (with torque converter)
4 A/T: 9.2 (9 3/4 US qt, 8 1/8 Imp qt)
5 A/T: 7.3 (7 3/4 US qt, 6 3/8 Imp qt)

 

Where's exactly is the plug ?? Please. Anyone knows ?

 

on the driver side very near the engine oil reservoir. you can access it from under the front of the car. Engine oil bolt is a 14MM, the Tranny fluid bolt is much bigger.

 

Depends on whether it's the 4 speed or 5. The 4 speed plug is in the bottom of the pan and is recessed up into the pan. The 5 speed is on the side as in the description from Burny.

 

I used to change trans oil on my '97 4spd and the plug was exactly ;ile you said. Now, for the 5spd, do you mean it's on the "side" of the black pan. I saw a small but taller black pan on the driver's side. I will check again today. The last few times I checked, I didnot see any plug but a bunch of tiny ones to take the whole pan out.

 

Valvoline has a statement indicating it can be compatible with Nissan stuffs. The oil is available on the shelf:
https://www.valvoline-technology.com/data/valv/prodinfo.nsf/0/85256AE300727D2BC1256BB900456C51/$file/Maxlife+ATF.pdf?OpenElement
They mentioned not really doing a long-term test yet. But by looking at the chemical contents, it has the required and more.

 

ya..the only thing is that anything else than the nissan k-matic stuff, gets or voids nissan out of the warranty.

 

I wouldn't want to use Valvoline for now. But the future looks good as I can see at least 2 sources paying attention to Nissan's Matic K. Well, I would be more interested when the Max is long out of any warranty. $15/quart for Nissan or $3/generic is tempting. Especially if there is a syncthetic
oil available for <$5, stating it would exceed Matic-K specifications.

 

okay guys, this is what i've found. i've been searching the org to see if anyone had tried using different tranny fluid other than matic k for the 5spd, and i didn't find any. i was about to hit the sack and did a one last search on "nissan matic k" on google, and this is what i found. check it out and tell me what you guys think.

http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/52539

 

I used to be a district manager for Nissan and I can say with 100% certainty...DONT USE ANY OTHER FLUID THAN NISSAN MATIC K.....PERIOD.

YOu will void your warranty faster than you can say "Oh ****". If you ever have any troubles with yuor tranny and the dealer finds out you have used another fluid, you are done.

Please take my advice as I have seen it many times before.

 

I came to the dealer today to pick up some oil-filters onsale for $4.95/each. They didn't have anything special for K-matic. But the guy told me it's $9.95/quart. So I got 5 quarts. I guess this is their regular price.