I bought an 04' Maxima (automatic) with 122k in August.

The first 1k miles I drove in d3, because I was unaware of the gear shift. The D and the 3 are right next to one another, and I thought they meant the same thing on this gear shift.

I was driving on the beltway about half of the 1k miles, going to speeds up to 80 mph, with 4500 rpms.

I basically want to know if anyone can tell me if I did any damage to my engine or transmission doing this. I keep worrying something is now wrong with the car.

 

should be fine, when i go back to Germany to visit family i drive at 5000rpm on it for hours at a time with no problem. you just cheated the car out of a gear, when 5th gear went out in my old pickup i would drive on the highway in 4th at redline

as long as you didnt see the coolant needle rise up on hills or anything, it stayed in the middle and everything else was normal i highly doubt you did damage

 

Thanks for the reply.

The temp. gauge stayed in the middle with no rising, so hopefully everything is alright

 

yeah everything should be completely fine then

 

Seems you have the 4speed SL.

 

Transmission wear and tear maybe?

 

Doubt it!

 

He drove ~500 miles with car in gear 3 at ~4500-5000 rpm...

vs

~500 miles with a car in overdrive with lower rpm

Transmission had to work harder

But how do you drive a car 500 miles with the rpm so high and think it's normal?

 

how? hes on the highway, engines getting a ton of cold air, radiator and tranny cooler are getting cool air, everyones happy. every summer i take highway trips in my Crown and im usually sitting at around 4000rpm for hours at a time, when i went back to Germany a while ago i was at 4000-5000rpm for 7-8 hours at a time on the Autobahn without a hitch. when i drove to Las Vegas a few years ago, i was at 4000rpm in the desert in 40c for hours without a problem. i can go on and on, the engine and trans dont really care

i can guarantee he didnt harm his transmission at all

 

I guess this thinking is a holdover from the "good ole days" when redlining a motor would result in a valve flying through the hood

Today's precision built motors can redline all day without breaking a sweat.
They may not sound good doing it, though, unless its a VQ30