The wife ran over a tree limb of some type this morning. It managed to puncture the transmission cooler line, through the plastic skirt under the radiator!

She noticed the car "smoking" about 2 miles later, turned around and drove about 4 miles back home. She said it didn't feel like it was running wrong until she pulled up the hill to the the garage. there was a puddle in front of the garage, and under the lift where she parked it when I got home.

I am not measuring anything on the dip stick. What should I do now? drop the pan? Just fill it up and see what happens? Have it towed to a transmission shop? set it on fire?

 

Yeah....



that sucks. You could try to fill it up...but yeah it really depends. It's probably shot

 

It might still be good. If you have the money take it to a trans shop but if it was me I would drop the pan inspect and then fill it up and see what happens from there. Maybe its cheaper to do that first before taking it to a shop.

 

might be alright, but automatics really dont tolerate being low on fluid at all, and running them low on fluid or with little fluid will wreck the hell out of the internals

 

I am reading the FSM for the CVT and no where does it ever mention dropping the pan to change the fluid. Says to run old out of the return line (the one that had the hole) and fill through the tube with new will idling.

From what I can see there is no screen or filter in the pan?? should I still drop the pan?

When I started it up for about a minute it was pretty much pouring out the return line before I shut it down, so it wasnt dry when she parked it.

 

Then just replace the line and refill it and you should be good.

 

Indeed replace the line and fill - hope the best plan for the worst....

 

i would still get it checked out though, even on low fluid things can get damaged

although at work a few days ago a guy was driving his Avalanche on the highway and a piece blew off and he lost all of his tranny fluid and we just put a new fitting on and filled it up and it drove fine and wasnt slipping or anything after

 

It did set code 1778 for Step Motor "not changing the pulley ratio according to instructions for TCM".

 

Call the insurance company, transmissions of any type don't improve without fluid

 

tell your wife not to drive 4 miles after hiting a tree a hearing a loud bang when the car smokes ?

 

Replace the broken parts, put fluid in, and hope for the best?

 

She is driving my 03 GMC Duramax today. I asked her what she was supposed to do if it starts smoking? "Shut it off and call you".

(I had better back the tune down!)

 

I really don't think that there is anything to "check" on the CVT. It's my understanding that Nissan won't even repair them, they just replace them. If it were my car, I would replace the damaged line, fill it with fluid, and drive it and see what happens. WORST case is your going to have to replace the trans. The CHEAPEST route at this point is just replace the line, refill it, and drive it and see what happens.

 

SO effin true! My mom ha done of these incidents with my dad the car was low on coolant and she said it started heating up so she punched it to get home faster?

 

i would try to fix it myself and if its not running right take it to nissan. if they see a problem they will fix it under the cvt warranty.

 

*sigh* women....

a female driving is like a man playing dress up... they can do it, but sure as hell suck at it...

 

You don't have a warranty for this problem, you drove over something, 1st thing you should have done was call a flat bed and your insurance company.

If it was my car, I would have drove the car until it did not shift anymore

 

Because those techs will NEVER know that it was run dry...

 

so you dont think its worth a shot? maybe your made of money and time but most of us are not.

 

+5

 

Drained what was left out of pan and cooler, got about 2 quarts total. Filled and flushed, total added back was 12.5 quarts, total removed was about 6 quarts, so had maybe 4 quarts still in it. At least 2 quarts drained out on the driveway.

Drove it quite a bit today, and doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear. Might have dodged a bullet!

The fluid that came out was light brownish, the new fluid is green. What color would one expect the fluid to be normally with 50 K miles???

 

That's because it was dirty. I did a drain/fill at 30k miles, and I'll do a flush/fill at 60K miles.