2012 CVT History

The club for Nissan Maxima and Infiniti I30 / I35 owners, and the official home of Maxima Club of America!
Gerald H
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2021 1:48 pm
Car: Current: 2012 Nissan Maxima SL, 2015 Nissan Murano SL AWD
Past: 1980 240SX, 1988 Hardbody, 1990 Stanza, 1992 Maxima SE, 1996 pickup,
1998 Altima, 2008 Rogue
Location: Charleston, SC

Post

fortunately, I am not seeing a lot of issues being posted for the CVT in the Gen 7 Maximas. Mine has about 64,000 miles and I just had the dealer change the fluid. No issues identified at that time.

Any thoughts on the necessity of a CVT fluid cooler? The Altima fora are full of transmission discussions. Currently, I am monitoring the CVT fluid temperature using the ScanGuage II. The tech support folks at ScanGuage provided the "XGuage" codes to talk to the 2012 Maxima transmission computer. It returns "count values" for temperature instead of a hex value that can be easily converted to degrees F. You just have to use the look-up table of count values. I attached a zipped copy of an Excel spreadsheet, format .xls.
MaximaCVTTemps.zip
Excel worksheet with count to temperature lookup for ScanGuage II.
(5.39 KiB) Not downloaded yet


User avatar
VStar650CL
Technical Expert
Posts: 8294
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2020 1:25 pm
Car: 2013 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL
2004 Nissan Altima 2.5 S

Post

The 6-cyl CVT's (Murano, Maxima, and especially the Pathy which is a monster) are definitely hardier than the 4-cyls. My feeling is it's a factor of applied area on the belt. Absent any overheating, the 4-cyl's seem to beat up the fluid much quicker than the 6-cyl's. Since erosion of film strength from shear forces is the primary factor that degrades the fluid, the smaller belt surface area of the 4-cyl's seems to have a huge effect. That doesn't necessarily mean you can or should stretch out your intervals on a 6-cyl, that's a decision you need to make based on your own driving and circumstances. The two big shear-producers for most people are having a lead foot or routinely driving in steep/hilly areas. If you live in Flatsville Flats and drive like grandma, you can probably get away with a lot -- but the fact is, that isn't bloody likely for anybody who owns a ScanGauge and posts in this forum. My advice for any CVT owner who's in it for the long haul is 30K maximum and do add a cooler, with a bypass valve if you live anyplace with 4 detectable seasons.


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