hmr1979

Greeting fellow members. I have a question about my 06 Maxima.

When I put my car into shiftronic mode, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, will shift nicely but after 4th gear, the car seems to drone a little bit when I accelerate. And shortly after I put it into 4th gear, it will automatically shift into another gear (WITHOUT ME PUTTING IT MANUALLY INTO 5th gear).

I do not know if this is normal or something wrong with my car. I would apreciate any thoughts or comments. Thank ya.

4MySwee

iTrader: (2)

I'll have to try it and see....

SilverMax_04

If your warranty is still in effect, take it to a dealer you trust (sometimes hard to find) and tell them about this problem. It should not be doing this.

You imply (but don't say outright) that the car shifts from 4th up to 5th gear, even though your instructions were to remain in 4th. Is that right?

hmr1979

I usually put it in shiftronic when I Want the car to go fast. From a red light standing still, I would put it in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, (constant acceleration) then right after 4th, the revs does not seem as constant and i feel the car drones a little bit and then almost always, I see the needle drop as IF it upshifts to 5th but I KNOW it's not in 5th because the reading still says 4th and when i DO put it into 5th, the needle will drop again and it goes into 5th. I mean i would love to have an 06 Maxima with a 6 spd automatic but I KNOW I DONT have 6 gears LOL.

So that little drop right after 4th gear is what puzzles me. The drone is also kind of annoying, and I press on the accelarator as much as I do with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. I usually don't red line but will shift at around 5K rpms at best.

I hope this answers your questions. I will take it to the dealer, my warranty is no more because i am at 39,000 right now. But my dealer has been more than wonderful with the services I have gotten with them. Ill bring it there.

91WBSE

iTrader: (1)

Sounds like you're feeling the torque converter locking up. That's normal. It locks up usually in 3rd/4th(4 speed auto), 4th/5th(5 speed auto), after a certain speed.

SilverMax_04

It may well be the torque converter locking up. But many auto trannies prevent this lock-up when you are at WOT -- don't know that Nissan has this "stop" lock-up feature on their auto trannies.

xoomer.com

iTrader: (19)

I have this same exact thing happen to me. I use steptronic quite a lot. It seems like it shifts from 4th to 4.5 gear. Correct?

hmr1979

You are absolutely correct. I actually drove it hard yesterday, REAL hard, just to see if the problem would occur at very high revs, and it seems that it doesn't do it at high revs (or maybe that the motor grunts so hard that I can't really tell with the needle drop). But YES, right after I put it into 4th, and lets say the RPM is at 3,500 RPM, I Can literally SEE the needle drop to 3,000 or less AND also feel the upshift....So ya, 4 and 1/2 gear is a good way of putting it lol

And it wouldn't bother me so much if it was just the mysterious upshift between 4 and 5th, but the thing is the car will drone a bit, because technically it's in shiftronic so if it upshifts by itself before it had time to rev up, the car just looses a bit of power, like its suppose to still be in 4th. Sometimes when I merge on the highway, if it occurs, I actually will literally have to kick it back down to 3rd, which is very annoying.

SilverMax_04

This is obviously the torque converter locking up. Because the torque converter is no longer working, the trannie becomes direct drive (past the converter), and your RPMs drop -- but the trannie has not shifted gears.

Based on hmr's description, it does appear that when you are at WOT, this prevents the torque converter from locking up, and thus the RPMs don't drop -- which is what you want the trannie to do.

This is the way the trannie is designed, so you need to get used to this feature. You don't want the torque converter to stay unlocked all of the time, your gas mileage would suffer. Nissan had to have some place between WOT and 3,500 RPMs at less than WOT for the torque converter to lock. You who are complaining don't seem to like that they picked something close to WOT.

Bottom line: there is nothing wrong with your auto trannie -- it is operating as designed.

hmr1979

OK, understood. Thank you for the explanation! Good job.

SmokeNismo

yep, It's normal. I get the same thing even when I'm pushing about 75% throttle, it's like a hidden gear in between, lol.

xoomer.com

iTrader: (19)

So I was thinking, thats why didn't bother going to the dealer. Thanks for confirmation thou. But yes it is annoying at time, thats when 3rd gear comes into play.