I have a 2000 5spd maxima. In June I went to a tranny shop to get the driver side seal replaced because my car was leaking a lot of fluid. Then a few months ago, my car started making a whirring noise. I thought it was the wheel bearing so I replaced it. Did not work. I haven't made the time to go to a transmission specialist since then and have had the leak come back. I have been putting in tranny fluid at least once a month. A few days ago my car started to make this weird clipping noise. You can feel it when accelerating, almost as if I were going over small speed bumps. I am not sure if the problem is related to the whirring noise in my tranny.

I did a google search and a 4th genner described the whirring noise as an internal bearing problem. He said that the bearing went bad and caused play in the axle which deformed the seal and caused a leak. I didn't have time to read through the whole thread but now it won't come up on the google search. Anyways, I was wondering what would be the best action to take here. I am thinking a transmission rebuild would be my only option short of a transmission swap.

One more thing, I was having heater issues (since winter is here). I noticed my heater was not getting warm and my car was overheating. Googled searched that and found that I was low on coolant even though my resevior was full. I opened up my radiator to find red clay. Google searched that and one hit came back saying that I have an air leak and it is mixing in with the coolant and causing the red clay during the cooldown process. Should I flush the system and repair the radiator and leak or just get a new radiator?

Thanks

Sorry for the looooooong post.

 

Okay I found the thread. Anyone else have any experience with this?
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=314016

 

sure seems as if it is a diff bearing problem to me. perhaps diff and input shaft bearing problems both. rebuild the current trans or get a different trans that has good bearings (how do you know though unless you know the car it came out of or you know it's been recently rebuilt or you check inside it yourself?)

 

That was the thing I was thinking about... if I get a new trans from car-parts.com or something, how will I know if the parts in that tranny are going bad or are bad. One option I am thinking of doing is having my uncle's shop just drop the tranny for me and sending it to a transmission specialist. I am thinking that might be cheaper. I am not sure what I am going to do yet. Also, I remember I went to another shop and they said my tranny fluid was low so they put in some gl-5. Turns out from my research that it might have been to harsh for my car. Do you think that migth have had something to do with it? Also, my car has 214k on it right now with no rebuilds.

 

You could contact dgeesaman to see if he has any rebuilt trannies onhand (he shipped mine out a week or so ago). Shipping will be a bit of a pain but he will give you a great price.

 

Thanks Morpeus. I just got a reply from him this morning. He doesn't have any in stock right now but he will get back to me.