GR8SOUND

Those of you who have 97 maximas with manual transmissions and have been following eric's transmission updates probably know what's coming next. My drive shaft seal is leaking and there is play in the left axle shaft which means that my differential bearing is worn (at 66,000 miles). I've been quoted a price of $1200 to have it fixed but was hoping you guys might know of a cheaper option. Are there other aftermarket upgrades I could do to prevent this from happening again or am I just stuck fixing the problem? Is this a fair price for the repair? Any one know of a good mechanic in the SF Bay Area?

Thanks!

Nealoc187

iTrader: (23)

Yet another bearing failure. This sounds familiar. Get ready to be yelled at for driving your car too hard man...


BTW I had a bearing failure as well. Mine was fixed for $600 though. The part itself is only $32, plus like 6-8 hours labor.

BriGuyMax

iTrader: (1)

make sure that when they fix it they use the CORRECT shims to avoid excess bearing pre-load which is what made your bearing fail in the first place.

There have been a handful of occurances in 96-97 maximas in which excessive bearing pre-load had caused premature failure of a bearing.

THIS IS NOT DUE TO DRIVING HARD...bearing wear in the trans has NOTHING to do with how hard you drive your car...

see5

This is not uncommon for all FWD cars. The Nissan repair is very large $ compared to a Taurus where rebuilt units are $200 installed.

Nealoc187

iTrader: (23)

I wasn't implying that it was, but everyone on this board who HASN'T had bearing failure seems to think it is.

Dave B

I think the problem is people exagerate the bearing failures. A very small group has had this failure, but others would lead you to believe that it is widespread and that the design of the 5 speed is bad and Nissan is a POS car maker.


Dave

ericdwong

$1200 is the labor cost of dropping and opening a transmission. MAKE SURE THEY SHIM THE NEW BEARINGS OR IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. The prevention to this, is to have had the correct shims put in at the factory. While you're at it, you can have the transmission internals cryogenically tempered for increased strength.

BTW, those transmission bearings are really strong. Out of my wrecked transmission I purchased that had its case busted open at the left hand drive axle, and the differential was bent and frozen. Yet the bearings did not crack, the rollers did not fall apart and the race did not scratch. This is how strong the bearing is. So the abuse driving part is not the cause, rather the defect of the factory.