Hi everyone,

I have a 2017 Maxima SL... I purchased the car used with about 28k miles on it. I've had the car going on 2 months now and I'm wondering if I'm having transmission problems.

When I drive I can actually feel the car change gears... ( let me add that this is my 2nd Maxima and 3rd Nissan so I'm kinda familiar with CVT transmissions and how they "operate") I took the car to my local Nissan and the service technician drove it and put it on the diagnostic machine and the codes came back as everything was fine.

My suspicions say that it's not fine.... out of all the Nissan's I have owned I have never felt the gears change it has always been a smooth change between gears.

In my opinion my car drives better in Sport mode than it does in Normal mode. Has anyone had this experience with their Max? Or does anyone have any helpful feedback or suggestion? Any help will be greatly appreciated

 

I only feel “gear changes” when accelerating aggressively.

 

I recall driving my friend's 2016 Maxima SV and the CVT transmission would feel like the power was on a rubber band snapping with more power as more throttle was applied. The tranny would "resemble" shifting -- albeit slightly - when under heavy throttle. In regular stop-and-go driving, city cruising speeds it was as though no shifting was felt. Are you feeling this "shifting" at all times, or only during heavy throttle? Regarding the sport vs. normal driving quality, it was definitely more responsive in sport mode and felt the car was more connected to the driver in that drive mode

 

Under what conditions are you feeling the "shifting" If you floor it or accelerate somewhat aggressively, it'll imitate shifting gears cause enough people complained about not feeling shifts in their transmissions cause they aren't used to it that Nissan implemented the dumb fake shifting for those people. I wish there was a way to turn that off