Both my maxima's (2009 and 2014) have had the rear-facing port on the CVT going to the rear-facing port of the filter, the forward-facing port of the CVT Ext Filter running to the top of the radiator cooler, and the bottom of the radiator cooler running to the forward facing port on the front of the CVT. Is that correct? I looked at the FSM and I can't seem to find it. The reason I ask is because when I start the car, fluid comes out of the port connected to the bottom of the cooler and that just doesn't sound right. I would think the fluid would come from the CVT to the filter, then to the top of the cooler to cool, and then back to the CVT. I can't decide if the lines are routed wrong or if there's something wrong in the CVT causing the fluid to flow the wrong way.

 

Yes, although it seems counter-intuitive, the flow is cvt to cooler to filter and now back to cvt.

 

Yeah, the way they have it now, the CVT outlet is hooked to the bottom of the cooler and the top is hooked to the filter so it has to push it up through the cooler instead of it flowing down like it should. I'm going to fix that tomorrow.

 

As it is under pressure all the time, I don't think that will make much of a difference.. Most likely you will dislodge any "detritus" to the filter as you are effectively back-flushing but as long as you change your filter after a few mins of running, you should be good. Otherwise, you can clog up your filter and then really damage your CVT.

 

The reason Nissan engineers designed it this way is to filter out any contaminates that could build up and dislodge from the cooler before fluid is pumped to the CVT. Reversing this flow pattern gains you nothing and risks damaging your CVT.

 

I'm not going to reverse the flow, I'm just switching the lines at the cooler so that it flows down through the cooler instead of being pushed up. It'll still go through the filter before going back into the CVT.

 

Make one wonder why the engineers and tribologists at Nissan didn't think of that....or did they?

 

Aren't you looking for a solution to a problem that does not exist?

 

My original question was just to make sure that the lines were hooked up correctly since I bought the cars used and you never know what someone did prior to that. I assumed it would've come out of the transmission, through the filter, and then gone to the cooler before returning to the CVT. Once that was answered, I had not seen cooling lines go into the bottom of a cooler before and push the fluid up, the hot side was always on the top and it flowed down, like a radiator so I just wanted to make sure that was right as well. I cleaned out the lines and cooler and put a new filter on it so it's all good for now.