I got my 02 SE 6spd in dallas 2 years ago. had to search about a month for it. good luck man, but it's gonna be hard to find a 5.5 gen under 80K miles.


Iactually drove the new 09 maxima a few days back. BEAUTIFUL CAR...but the CVT takes nearly all the funn out of it. and is extremely odd. gunned it pretty hard and it just HELD at about 3,500 rpms. i was like " whoooaaa sales guy, am i breakin this $hit?" no thanks nissan. but keep the g37 coupes and altimas with manual and i'm happy in the future

 

I think subaru justy came with a cvt, back in the day.
Not every innovation is a forward progress, look what happened to rotary engines.

 

my 07 cvt is great,, not suited for wot however... my dealer like the cvt

 

CVT fail, they need a 6speed option!!!

 

the reason I bought a Max was I wanted a 4 Door that could hold the family with a MT.

Now the new Max doesn't have one and I think neither does the Altima (Though I'm not 100% sure).

Only thing left is the $35K Infiniti G.

It's kind of funny that they don't have a CVT. 7 Speed Auto or 6 Speed MT. 320 Horses.

Maybe they were afraid of a CVT in something with that many ponies.

Makes you wonder.

 

I'd like to know if this customers "FIRST" fluid change was at 150K...if so, it's no wonder the tranny failed. There's a reason Nissan recommends changing the fluid every 30K. You can't neglect something to the point of failure, and then complain when it does fail.

 

Yea i agree i dont think the cvt can handle a whole lot of hp and torque......I had the cvt in my altima and after about 25k miles the tranmission started slipping like, it was terrible! Hopefully the cvt in my maxima holds up better

 

Are you sure it was slipping and not because it was adapting to your driving style?
Dr J

 

I'm with the guys above. I don't think it''s torque. A lot of really heavy equipment have CVTs. But they don't go very fast. And no spinning tires when you dump it off the line.

If there is a problem (and I'm not saying there is) it's got to do with high performance.

Just weird that the highest end high performance sedan they build doesn't have it.

The G has that 7 speed Auto in that is crazy enough. 7 Speeds!!!

 

You mean M5 and CTS-V? So hard to find current M5's with 4 pedals. Wonder what the trend is all about?

Dr J

 

Do not wonder.

For those still enamoured with less-efficient manual trannies, the Altima is available with one. And the reason the $35K Infiniti G doesn't have a CVT is not because of the horses; it is because CVTs are primarily for FWD vehicles (although JATCO has developed one for RWD vehicles), and the G is RWD.

Nothing involved with this should 'make anyone wonder.' The only thing I wonder is how the CVT improved so much between the '08 and '09 Maximas. The '09 CVT is so tight and right. And this improved '09 CVT gets 26 MPG with a 290 HP engine, where the '08 CVT got 25 MPG with a 255 HP engine.

For those who may have forgotten, federal guidelines changed at the end of the 2007 model year, and the '04 thru '08 Maximas were all re-rated at 255 HP and 25 MPG hwy at that time.

Had this '09 CVT been available sixty years ago (when I began driving), I would never have endured sixty years of frustration and disappointment with all those inefficient notchy manuals and even less efficient slushy auto trannies.

 

I think cvt is nice. But the real fun and performance comes from a manual tranny. There is nothing as exciting as clutching and switching gears. Shifting to higher gears and backing it to lower gears for power and help with braking some times. My 08 has cvt, but when I drive my friends VW Passat 5-speed manual tranny, I can conveniently say performance is remarkable.

 

yeah man I am hearing ya on that one!

and why would anyone buy a three pedal car that is FWD?? That's even more perplexing!

 

Your right they are extremely hard to find with 4 pedals, some would say impossible

 

dead pedal, clutch pedal, brake pedal, gas pedal. Many cars don't have the dead pedal nowadays. I haven't driven a current Maxima since I lost interest in them... do they have dead pedals still?
Dr J

 

Fun and excitement? Yes, the manual tranny is definitely more fun and excitement for many folks . . .

UNLESS you regularly drive in stop and go traffic where 15 MPH is a normal speed. The manual loses its fun and excitement in the traffic we have in large cities these days.

I traded my last manual (5 speed '78 Datsun 200SX) in on a Maxima with automatic after finding I was shifting almost a thousand times each work day, stuck in miserable traffic, but seldom averaging over 20 MPH. I was raising plenty of blisters on my shifting hand, and wearing out my left leg (and spilling my coffee and dropping my donut). But fun and excitement? None at all.

Performance? No; not the manual. Those days are ending. As the CVT is continually improved, it will (if not already) reach a point where it outperforms any shifting tranny for the simple reason there is not that instant at each shift point where absolutely no accelleration is taking place. Simple physics.

But there is a far more important factor we should all be concerned with, and the government has passed legislation to insure the car manufacturers are DEFINITELY concerned with it, and that is fuel efficiency. Like it or not, fuel efficiency will be the mantra for these next few decades.

AND the manual is no longer more efficient than the so-so CVT in the '08 Maxima, and is actually LESS efficient than the new CVT in the '09 Maxima. Anyone who passed high school physics can understand that, all else being equal, a tranny that never shifts will be more efficient than one that has to shift. Again, simple physics.

The manual was all we had in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. And it was more efficient and more fun than the automatics of the 1950s through the end of the second millenium. But within another decade or so, it will be viewed as an amusing plaything of those still mentally living in a bygone era. That is sad, but that is the reality of our future.

 

If it was adapting to my driving style why would the transmission slip?

 

OK. The CVT being developed for FWD first makes sense. It can probably more smartly help with torque steer and such.

But as I stated there are CVTs for all types of Heavy equipment (most of which are 4WD with transfer cases) so I don't see much of an issue developing one for a RWD.

I feel like probably 95% of people in American should be driving some sort of Auto so I am sure CVT is a great thing for them. The majority of Americans just want to turn the key and drive with as little input as possible. It's amazing to me how many manuals there are in Europe. Most taxis in germany are manual Mercedes. It's crazy.

But I have to be honest and would rather drive a manual (and although I have only been driving for 30 years) I have never thought of it as frustration.

Sure, there have been crappy manual boxes and some really good ones over that time, but I feel more in control and like part of the car more with it than any auto.

And I don't understand your saying a manual is less efficient. Since it's gear to gear everything gets transferred to the wheels. 100%. No auto in the world can claim that. Even a locked torque converter has some loss. Now for bracket racing on a strip an auto is more consistent. No question about it. With a manual, it's all on the driver. They are the ones that cause inefiiciencies in the system.

One of my fondest memories was driving a first gen VW GTI. Really boxy 5 speed, but bulletproof. I beat the crap out of that for a few years. Never an issue.

I've owned a 67 Chevelle SS396 since I was 15. The tranny in that is called a "Rock Crusher" for good reason and it would be a crime to call it smooth. It's noisy and first gear has a huge whine. The slop between gates is enormous. The throw is gigantic. But it can't be broken. And although newer cars have great horsepower compared to those old machines in the 60's the torque from a 396 would tear a modern auto to pieces.

But CVT will probably keep me from a new Maxima. I'll probably hold out with my 02 for as long as I can (even replacing that crappy 6MT for a 04 Altima one) and either pick up a 3.5 Altima or try to get a few year old G37 with a 6 speed (if I can afford it).

The day I'm too lazy to step on the clutch is the day they can seal me in the box.

Sorry for the long message, but you really hit a chord here.

 

Didn't mean to 'hit a chord.' I drove manuals off and on from 1949 through 1984, and when I lived in places like Bisbee, Sierra Vista and Tombstone in southern Arizona, the manual was the only way to go. Loads of fun. I even liked the manual better for medium size places like Montgomery AL, Meridian MS, etc. But while living in Los Angeles, the manual did nothing for me. And years of living in the Atlanta area convinced me the manual was never intended for long hours of creepy crawling.

Even thought there were definitely efficiency and performance advantages of the manual over shifting automatics, a non-shifting tranny has those same advantages over a manual. Not just my opinion, but the opinion of those who are testing these things in labratories. Nissan said their lab research during '09 Maxima development showed their CVT would get around one MPG better than the best manual they had available, and they also said that margin would only increase as their CVT development progressed.

When we think about that, the reason is clear. The manual has ONLY five or so ratios, while the CVT has unlimited ratios. Worse, changing ratios (shifting) with the manual will always leave a fraction of a second at each shift where the motor is running, but no power is going to the wheels. But the CVT constantly makes very subtle adjustments 'on the fly', setting up the perfect ratio for each situation, with no gap or pause involved.

Although the manual will gradually fall further behind the CVT in efficiency and performance, I feel the overwhelming reason Nissan did not offer the manual as an option on the '09 Maxima is because they lost millions of dollars producing a manual Maxima that dealers did not want and buyers did not buy from the late 1990s through 2006. The decision was not made by Nissan, but by the buying public.

Were the Maxima still a volume vehicle (around 100K sold), Nissan might have given us a manual and eaten the loss. But the Maxima has moved upscale to near luxury, and there will be less than 50K Maximas sold this year, so the margin just isn't there to cover the losses a manual would bring.

Sadly, I see no way we ever see a manual in the Maxima again.

 

I like the points put forward by fflint_18. Lightonthehill, I thought the way you wrote about the manual tranny, you never enjoyed driving one.

As clearly stated by fflint_18, a lot of people in america just want to turn the key and go. But in Europe most of the cars are stick. And yes, they do have tons of traffic and people with busy lifestyles like us here. No big difference. Of course it is a highly developed country too. So, why do think, though they manufacture a lot of luxury cars like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, they still put manual tranny in them? It is rare or almost not available to find recent models of these cars in the US with sticks in them.

I do like my cvt and like its performance. But there is that feeling of being in control that is lacking. The one of YOU deciding the speed and power. Not the cvt being in control. It makes me wonder a lot why they make the cvts and put the manual mode, without a clutch. What is the sense of that? For real. Explain that to me.

It is clearly an auto! How can they put the manual option with no clutch? Is it suppose to be a joystick at that point?

All I can say is Nissan has its reasons for putting whatever in their cars. And I sure do like my 08 Maxima SE, for it comes with all the toys I like, plus the one I added to complete it. But when it comes to fun in driving, on a long trip, I will prefer driving a stick, than a cvt. But I don't have that option, so, I am in my Max with its cvt and all I can say is "Catch me if you can, on the freeway!"

 

The European situation is much different than the U.S. For one thing, although you see large cars in Europe, they have always had a much higher percentage of small cars than we have in the U.S. With the insane prices they have always had to pay for gasoline over there, that was almost mandatory.

As recently as around ten years ago, probably between 85 and 90% of vehicles in Europe would fall into what we call the compact and econo-box category. That percentage is not greatly lower even today. Mass-produced cars of that size almost invariably have a manual, either as the only option, or as the price-leader. So through the end of the second millenium, most Europeans began their driving career on a manual.

I have noticed that folks that learn to drive in a manual vehicle (such as my son and daughter) seem to always prefer a manual. By contrast, most folks that learn to drive in an automatic vehicle usually go through life preferring an automatic. With Europeans learning to drive on a manual, they take that preference into larger cars when they can afford to move up.

There is one additional factor: In Europe, through the end of the second millenium, a lower percentage of wives drove the family car. In the U.S., the wife often drives more than the husband. And busy wives that have lots of places to be, and dozens of chores to take care of, are not usually into driving for the macho sport of it. Many have never driven a manual, and have not the slightest interest in learning. They are just trying to get from one place to another, and have their mind on the next five or six tasks.

If you like your '08 CVT, you will LOVE the '09 CVT. It is a much tighter unit, with better anticipation, and better software. And, despite vehement denials, the CVT is not truly an 'automatic'. Automatics shift gears. The CVT has no gears to shift, and applies a continuous, uninterruped flow of power at the optimum ratio. Big difference.

As for the 'manual option' in CVTs, it simply puts the tranny into one of five selected gear ratios, which is exactly what a manual does. Despite the moans, denials and 'nays', the reality is that, once we take the time to truly understand and master this CVT, we have just as much control over the car as we do with a manual. Why require the use of the left foot when it serves no purpose other than to coddle the ingrained habits of those folks who, like trained rats, think eliminating that move takes the driver out of the picture? Old habits can be hard to break, expecially where macho egos are involved.

Yes, I loved my manual trannies. I also loved my electronic tube-type radios, and my one-speed bicycles, and my crank-type wall phones, and my tube-type tires, and my windup Victrolas, and my 78 rpm mono records, and so on. But I have learned that nothing stays the same, no matter how much we may want it to. We can either fight progress, which is both frustrating and useless, or we can assimilate it into our life and move on.

 

Hi all. I just wanted to let you all know my experience that I am now going through. 1 month ago I bought a 2010 Nissan Maxima SE. A few days ago (mileage approximately 950 miles, thats right less than 1k) at a toll plaza I noticed that my maxima was lagging. Sort of like when you put a manual transmission into 4th gear and try to drive from a stand still. Shortly later the service engine soon light came on.

The following day I took it to Courtesy Nissan (Tampa, Fl) and told them of the problem. After several hours they said that diagnostics did not find the problem, but when the tech took the vehicle for a test drive the vehicle was in fact lagging as I had reported. The tech contacted Nissan engineering (supposedly) and they advised that there was something wrong in the transmission (I assume the CVT, but am unsure at this time) that made the vehicle it think when starting from a stand still that it was in 3rd or 4th gear. I am now waiting on some new parts from Nissan USA to get the problem fixed.

I will keep you all posted as to the outcome and will use more technical terms as soon as I get the final report.

I am a first time Maxima owner and bought the Maxima because I have always heard that they are great vehicles and retain resale value more so than many other vehicles. I sure hope that this does not completely ruin my Maxima experience.

 

Not to burst your bubble, but at least from around my parts, the maxima is one of the worst to retain value - i.e. it holds its resale value as well as a chevy/ford/kia/etc.

 

LOL, that's why it's awesome! You can get a used one for cheap, and still end up better than a car that does hold it's value, like altima, camry, or accord.

That's assuming the CVT holds up. Why haven't CamCords, Avalon, or 3series gone CVT yet?

Dr J

 

Maximas are not cheap, bang for your buck yes, that is whats deceiving and makes you think you get more car for less money, but from what I've seen Maximas are right up their with other mid level expensive cars, but just like every other car, you drive it and put some mileage on it and the thing loses value, no drive, no mileage and it is worth something, do the average amount of driving and it says in the middle like every other car.

The CVT is like any other trans, the fluid is the life, change it and it will last, leave it in and it will shorten the life

 

My bad. I was using Edmunds.com for reference. I chose 2007 model year to compare. Then clicked on "Resale Value" menu on the left. I took the listed 2008 trade in value divided by 2009 trade in value and arrived at the following percentage depreciation year-on-year. I picked cars I thought were comparable, and were mentioned in Edmund's own reviews as comparable.

24% 08-09 Maxima SL

27% 08-09 Maxima SE

22% 08-09 Avalon Limited

22% 08-09 Avalon XLS

21% Chrysler 300C

12% 08-09 Acura TSX auto

12% 08-09 Altima SE 3.5 CVT

05% 07-08 VW Passat 3.6 *no data for 08-09

What data did you use?
Dr J

 

I actually used my feet and walk into dealerships, and I have found that for the 100x and more that internet BS does not represent real life but you keep doing that

 

yes the cvt sucks. and it doesn't get you better gas mileage by that much. for instance a heavier G with the 'normal' auto gets 1mpg better. Also the awd auto G gets only 1 hp less then the maxima despite being heavier and haveing a higher output engine.

 

from your post, you sound like Gus, the toyota master tech from across the street. Is that really you, GUS ??????

 

The theory of a CVT is a great concept. Either run the engine where torque is the best or fuel economy is best. And isn’t a trans rebuild at 150k about right?

 

yo man, mechanical parts (nuts, bolts, gears) will ALWAYS be more reliable than electronics. Period.

 

Running the engine at peak HP is best. Even though torque production is down at those engine speeds it is still doing the maximum amount of work which is what counts.

 

Yeah, I agree. I think CVT is a great technology if it can last 150k miles without fluid change at all..... I don't think the convensional MT or AT can last 150k miles without fluid change....

 

That is an early concept of the CTV.

Nissan has improved upon that design so that it s simpler.

See their video outlining the basics and benefits of the CVT.


And here's a great video that demonstrates the mechanical function of the Continuously Variable Transaxle (CVT)

I'm sure there were many people who were equally as critical of other advances such as fuel injection over carburators etc.

IN time, the CVT will be de-facto, but we are still in the early stages.

 

 

 

Correction, CVT's suck for power. They are great for daily driving

 

twalker
We ARE in the early stages of this newer transmission style being adopted for more of a retail/ mass produced setting... it IS advancing whether it be by the parts used, or how it's controlled... I don't know if any ones been on the Nissan site, but the 2013 altima has the brand new CVT technology which adapts less moving, and more frictionally co-efficient materials inside the transmission.

I will also admit that even though I own an Automatic, I DO miss the connection that you feel to the engine through the stickshift... although I drive a 10 speed EVERYDAY its definitely NOT the same. I do think that Nissan is pushing, ramming rather, this whole alternate transmission **** down their customers throats, which as a consumer blows... We should be able to choose what we want in the car we would like to purchase. Bring back the stick shift i say!!

 

i drove a rental car w/ CVT and i thought it sucked. to me, it was a lifeless pos. i'll never buy a car w/ that crap transmission in it.

 

cvt's belong in scooters and econoboxes, not maximas. i don't care if its .2 sec (or whatever) faster in the quarter over a manual, i want physical gears that i can switch and downshift myself.