Brand new 24 sl and Peed off

[VStar650CL]

It's on all the gen6 Alties. My theory (as yet unsupported) is that they changed the TC to generate a little extra heat without having to alter the trans itself.

[D1dad]

So would my 21 not be included? The cvt in that runs as cool as I’ve ever seen a cvt run.

[VStar650CL]

Yep. Like I said, my theory is that they changed the TC and not the transmission. It's also possible they made changes in the VB to allow the TCM to generate extra heat by manipulating the line pressure system. But one way or another, the change is deliberate and doesn't affect the bulk of the hardware.

[D1dad]

So just like Chrysler did with the 9 speeds. Let a computer nerd try and figure it out? I live 40 miles way away from where the Cherokee was/used to be built.
They F’d up an all time legend.
This seems to be a total 360 from how we think cvts should run.

[VStar650CL]

This seems to be a total 360 from how we think cvts should run.

Correction -- how we know CVT's should run. On further thought, the Altima model turnaround tends to run 6 years, so the gen6 is nearing the end of its current run. Scuttlebutt a few years back was that it would be scrapped in '25, but ASIST has a '25 manual already and it's still L34, so we know that isn't true. It still may go in '26, although it seems like the recent gas price spikes and the crash in EV sales is making the company rethink their strategy. If there is an L35, it's almost certain to use the new GE series from the Rogue and not the old '10D. In light of all that, I think these "hot" trannies may simply be a quick and dirty fix for a model that will sunset one way or another and doesn't justify the engineering effort of a proper fix. Once the warranty is up you're free to un-fix it with a cooler, and that's definitely what I'll be advising my clientele to do.

[D1dad]

I don’t know if a cooler would do it the way they have these tuned. I just ran the 24 8 miles on rural country roads and went from ambient temp (80 degrees) at startup, to 175 in that short time. These thing get hot and fast. I’m going to run to Kentucky and back in a week on i75 so I’ll get to see what’s what and how hot this will actually get. I’ll be doing 80 plus and hitting some decent sized hills. This car runs 215 on flat ground. If this new design falters and another class action is brought, I don’t know that Nissan will survive it.

[VStar650CL]

If this new design falters and another class action is brought, I don’t know that Nissan will survive it.

Agreed. Can't say I'm happy about it.

[D1dad]

Or in the flip side maybe the engineers figured out that the cvt temps getting hotter is a cure for what ailed them? Death to motor oil, especially here in the north is cold. Oil temps never getting hot enough to burn off water and fuel is typically worse than heat. I got a juke at the Shreveport airport, drove it back to Pensacola a week later to catch a flight and no issues.

I also brought home covid as a souvenir! Worst case of covid I ever had BTW!


This thing was beat to chit with 51k on it. Ambient temps were 97 everyday and I’d guarantee the cvt was never serviced. I heard Nissan told jatco to get this figured out and fixed or were done with you. But yes, your job as a tech is to be more vigilant than ever selling cvt service. But will all techs care? Probably not. 59k will come sooner than the warranty for me, so I’ll have a decision to make. The only Nissan tech I trust outside of you told me that he saw very few of my gen of rogue with transmission issues, even though they extended the warranties. And 60k was the typical selling point for a cvt service. But most never used the dealer for standard maintenance so they didn’t have the chance with owners to push it.

[VStar650CL]

Or in the flip side maybe the engineers figured out that the cvt temps getting hotter is a cure for what ailed them? Death to motor oil, especially here in the north is cold. Oil temps never getting hot enough to burn off water and fuel is typically worse than heat.

People are probably tired of hearing me say it, but everything in engineering is a compromise, especially when you're trying to build for a nickel what any schmuck off the street can build for a dollar. In this case, I just think the wrong compromises were made long ago in the initial thermal design. If they'd installed a large beehive with positive thermal control in the first place, problems like this would never have occurred, the transmission would come up to optimal temperature and stay there just like the engine does. The fact is, thermal management was an afterthought. The ECM's not being programmed to turn the fans on when a transmission overheats tells you everything you need to know. They never expected the trans to need thermal management, and now they're stuck with a system that can't adapt and costs too much to fix.

But most never used the dealer for standard maintenance so they didn’t have the chance with owners to push it.

That's the rub. Per my convo with our TSM, Nissan seems happy to assume that every customer will visit the dealer for service, and that every tech will trouble to boot a (hideously slow and cumbersome!) Consult3+ and check the fluid deterioration. Sadly, that ain't the real world.

[D1dad]

I just can’t figure out the ac in this thing. The fan on low feels like any of my other Nissans on medium. If we don’t turn the temp up to at least 75 it will freeze you out. Don’t get me wrong, if I was in Florida I’d be ecstatic. But in Ohio the ac is almost too much. I’m considering going with an N95 cabin filter to see if it’ll choke the flow down. If I turn the fan up to high it will part your hair. I saw on another forum a guy mentioning this in a rental he had.

[VStar650CL]

I don't get that either, because the blower motor itself hasn't changed since '14. There are a couple different p/n's, but those are vendor changes and not a change in specification. It's also the same vendor from '21 up. The only things I can think are either they made a change in the HVAC box or they made a software change to drive the fan harder. You can check the latter by measuring voltage on the small control wire at the blower connector on your '21 versus '24. IIRC the signal is negative (fan runs faster as control voltage drops). If the '24 has a lower signal voltage then it means the Auto Amp is driving the fan harder. It's a brushless with inductive control (analog, no smartwork), so you can probably slow it down just by wiring a resistor divider in between the Auto Amp and the blower.

[D1dad]

I may call the dealer and see what they say. Of course this is a dealer who changed the wheel bearings when it was ultimately the tires, which I figured to begin with. Pisses me off I had to spend a grand on new tires on a new car. But I cut and run from hankooks asap anyways. Bosch makes a filter for these things that I’ll probably try first. I installed one in the rogue and it cut the air flow down so much I removed it a week later. If I can reduce airflow by 50% I’d call that normal compared to what it’s doing now. My son who is half polar bear even commented on it.

[VStar650CL]

My son who is half polar bear even commented on it.

I was half polar bear at 30, too.

The first thing that goes with old age is your memory, and the second thing is... wait... wait... it will come to me...

...oh yeah. Blood.

[D1dad]

Yep. I’m flying to key west on Monday for our annual keys vacation. Can’t wait. We got Covid from a work trip to Louisiana almost 5 weeks ago and still feel the lingering effects. At 25 I wouldn’t have been sick for more than a few days. At 51 it takes six weeks lol. I’m going to let the south Florida sun, and land sharks bake and flush it out of me. I had it back in 21 (delta variant) and this was worse. The wife for some reason didn’t get it as bad. Of course she drinks kimchi and I drink bacon grease.

[VStar650CL]

I got omi. The only thing it really did was erase what was left of my sense of smell. But I'm okay with that, half the human race can't smell a dang thing after Covid. I don't feel so left out.

[D1dad]

There must be a thermostat in the tranns somewhere. I drove it 350 miles in temps from 80-90 and everytime the trans temp hit 216 it immediately dropped to 208. Still to hot and I can’t say for sure it wouldn’t blow right past 216 on any decent sized hills.

[VStar650CL]

That could well be. If so, the logical place would be the return path from the TC, and it would have to be incorporated into the VB to respond that quickly. So it's probably under control of the TCM, not just a waxy poppet valve. My plan is to have a close look the first time we see a blown one, but I dunno how soon that will be.

[D1dad]

The 24 hertz rental I had did the same except it would rise to 220 before it would drop, but it was south Florida and I was driving it like it wasn’t mine. I was actually impressed how hard (in a good way) the cvt pulled on that car. It was at 20k already which was a lot of miles for a car that had only been in service for maybe 8 months. So I can vouch that they’ll make it 1/3 of the way to the warranty. I’d like to believe that they finally got the cvt issues figured out. So either my 21 and 18 are glass slippers waiting to shatter or this me 24 is? Having my TFT gauge hooked to thing is anxiety inducing, and I may not do it anymore. I don’t know if I should service this thing religiously or let it ride to 59k and trade it as a test to see what happens.

[VStar650CL]

Can't help you with the decision, and since it will probably be awhile before '24's start blowing up if they're going to blow, I can't really give you better info right now. But my definite suspicion is that we're going to see them blowing when folks don't service them. Your '18 and '21 aren't glass slippers, and frankly, corrosion simply shouldn't be an issue for guys like yourself who are very regular about service. When cold and liquid, water droplets will head for the bottom of the pan, so the bulk of any moisture should always go out with the old fluid. The only thing it changes about my personal outlook is that DIYers should endeavor to do their spill-and-fills by measure-and-replace unless there's a reason to use the leveling plug, so it's being done cold.

Regarding the rest of this, I think we're just seeing another artifact of Nissan treating their CVT's as "5-year wonders" when it comes to service. Sadly, I doubt they care much about what happens after 60K and I'm sure they won't be recommending increased service. The new '10D's are stronger than the old ones, so (equally sad), I'd be pretty sure the vast majority will make 60K on the original fluid despite the elevated temps.

[D1dad]

Are you seeing cvts replaced under warranty or has it gotten better? I’d put Nissans engines up against anyone, so it’s sad that they’re in a hurry for owners to get to 60k so they can shoulder shrug the whole thing. When my 09 trans started whining the service manage acted completely shocked, while the tech that did it had it down to such a science that he could cut the labor time he was paid for in half.

[VStar650CL]

We certainly did replace a lot of trannies for awhile there. The SM acting shocked had to be an act, us techs all knew there were big problems by the second year of the gen4's. We don't replace a lot of them these days, though. What used to be a shop full of them is down to a trickle. I'm just worried that in the long term, the '24~'25 Alties will prove to be the new exception to the new rule.

[D1dad]

I just ordered some oem fluid part #999MP-CVNS360 to do a spill and fill in my 24. There’s more than 1 part # listed for ns3 and I have no clue why? Any input on this vstar? Seems like ns3 is ns3?

[VStar650CL]

Nissan changes part manufacturers all the time, and every time they do, it's a new p/n. I know you're familiar with that with the oil filters, a gazillion numbers and they're all the same part. Fluids are no different.

[D1dad]

I wish they’d change suppliers of their filters. I just pulled ANOTHER defective filter off the rogue the other day, four total now. The Adbv flips down and stays open causing dry start rattle. I got a case from the Nissan dealer out of Chicago and am done using them.

[D1dad]

Is the leveling procedure the same on the 24? I usually pull the plug at 105 degrees and let it run to a thin stream.

[VStar650CL]

Yep, nothing different.

[D1dad]

Some more cvt temp data. I ran this thing to Nashville and back this week in 92 degree temps, no mountains but some definite long uphill climbs. 220 was where it topped out at and would stay there for around ten miles or so. Then without any change in speed or terrain, I’d look at the gauge and be at 195 or so? When I pulled into the hotel after staying at these higher than I’ve ever saw with any of my other cvts, and 402 miles, it smelled hot. Not like overheating or fluid burning, but definite transmission hot. Id love to talk with an engineer from jatco and get an explanation behind this. Are these programmed to run high temps for extended periods to burn off condensation and then cool down?

[VStar650CL]

Id love to talk with an engineer from jatco and get an explanation behind this. Are these programmed to run high temps for extended periods to burn off condensation and then cool down?

Me too, but for now, your guess is as good as mine regarding the reasoning and the mechanism. Trying to talk "upstairs" to any of Nissan's vendors is like trying to pour paper through a filter. Even NNA engineers need special dispensation to talk upstairs to NJ, and then Japan has to talk to the vendor. It's agonizing and often futile.

[D1dad]

It seems this car is the gift that just keeps on giving! I drove it 1 1/2 hour up to Detroit airport, it sat for a week and I came back to a stone dead battery. AAA showed up (thank god) in less than 20 minutes and jumped it. The battery tested at 0% charge and 63% state of health. I dropped it at Nissan and picked up my 21 that had the tsb done on the axles, which is fixed btw, only to be told it takes 3 hrs to run some sort of a test to diagnose a warranty battery and haven’t heard back yet. I’ve left our rogue and my 21 set in the airport garage for weeks and never had this happened. This car has been nothing short of a full blown headache.

[VStar650CL]

Nissan insists on a "diagnostic charge" test with the DCA-8000 for all warranty batteries, pretty much regardless of type. With EFB's there's additional folderol. So they're not kidding about the possible time involved, it can be 5 minutes but can also be 155 minutes. Then we have to submit what's called a VCAT, which is basically a pile of ridiculous documentation so high that no one in their right mind would do it unless absolutely necessary. I'm sure Nissan won't admit it, but that's basically to discourage people throwing batteries and radios at cars without doing proper diag. So don't blame the dealer, in this case it ain't their fault.