Dead Transmission at 137,000 Miles 2004 Pathfinder

[nickelghandi]

Hey folks,

I have not posted here in a while because my Pathfinder has been running pretty much trouble free aside from the old oil consumption issue I posted about a long time ago. Well, the week before last, I was at the end of my 30 mile commute home from work. I came to a stop at a traffic circle to yield to some traffic. When I started back up again, the truck did not want to move. I thought I maybe had stuck brakes and just gave it a little more gas. It started moving, but made a sound like a dump truck trying to get moving under load. It shifted hard out of first and kept making the sound in second gear and any time I let off the gas.

I limped it the last mile home and parked it in the street. The next morning, I took it to my mechanic who is conveniently less than a mile from my house. The Pathfinder was still acting the same. I dropped it off for the day to let them fool with it. They called me back later and told me it was almost certainly the transmission. They said I owed nothing for the diagnosis, and even offered to tow it to a transmission shop for free for me. I have done a lot of business with these guys in the last 5 years and they are good guys. If you are in or around Lexington, KY and need work done, Quality First Auto Care is a great little shop.

I had triple AAA tow my Pathfinder for me so as not to inconvenience the guys at the shop and because I pay for AAA and never use it. The transmission shop dropped the pan and confirmed that there was metal everywhere and that the transmission has literally come apart and I basically had no first gear. It as been sitting at the shop for a while now. The shop is going to do a compression test to make sure my oil consumption isn't because of something serious, and the new transmission is going to cost me about $2700. I love this truck so I am willing to put the money in to fix it all up. The "new" transmission has 100k miles on it but my pathfinder has 137k so I am not too worried. This shop is supposed to do good work and their price doesn't seem too bad.

The only thing I don't understand is why? Why would my transmission fail? I have never seen this issue pop up on the forums for our Pathfinders. I don't tow anything. I don't drive like it like a racecar. I don't use excessive speed on the freeway. I did take it up to the limit once, but I am usually between 65 and 75mph. I am not the first owner, but it never really showed any signs until it was dead. I mean I drove it to work and back daily. I never lost any transmission fluid and it never looked burnt or bad in any way. Has anyone else had their transmission die and if so, do you know why it happened?

[OneSpiritBrain]

I literally just had my transmission disintegrate @165K... pieces of pin bearings and an incredible amount of metal powder on the magnet as well as large(1-3mm) curled shavings and clumps of clutch material. The smell of the oil was hard to bear.. I gave swapping it myself a try and it was the hardest car related repair I've ever been a part of(industrial maintenance).

I don't know what exactly failed or anything but Nissan appears to have dropped the ball with these things.

[ArmedAviator]

These things can happen at any time. I had a 2006 Ford 4R75E transmission fail on an easy drive at 43k miles. It was babied. A poorly designed (weak) direct clutch drum had cracked and failed and caused the clutches to fry in seconds. Cost me $2.3k for a rebuild.

You can always consider a factory re-manufactured transmission from the dealer. Usually they're not too much more expensive and have a good warranty (3+ years).

[Jake2.4]

Mine died at 139k. It would hold gears for too long when cold, then one day I was idling in park and I heard some groaning noises from the trans. Limped it home slipping all the way. I took off the pan to find the filter fully clogged with metal shavings, replaced it with a junkyard trans.

[barnaclebob]

I'm at 151k with no problems. How often did you change the transmission fluid? Mine has been changed pretty regularly every 30 to 50k. If it does crap out I've decided to give it a go DIY since it wouldn't be worth it to have a shop do the work. At the very least it will be a good learning experience.

[AlanAZ]

Btw: It's highly recommended to install a Magnefine or similar filter (as described in other threads here) in the return line to catch any metal that's remaining in the cooler line before it can get into a replacement or rebuilt transmission.

If you ever have a trans rebuilt, installing a cooler line filter becomes even more important as problems with Type 1 and Type II break-in debris are more common, as well as the possibility of debris from the previous failure lurking in the lines and coolers. If the transmission shop doesn’t install a cooler line filter as part of the job (many do), you should.

[nickelghandi]

I changed the fluid when I got it but I've only put about 30k on it. Fluid always seemed fine when I checked it which I do about once a month.

It actually did seem to hold gears too long occasionally when cold. I would merge onto the freeway and it would stay in 2nd gear even when I let off to make it upshift at 60 mph. Then when it finally would upshift it would be a harder shift.

Great advice on the filter. I'll make sure the guy puts one in.

It also has always had the tendency to run a little warm. I made a post about that a long time ago too. It never overheated but after changing the thermostat when it wouldn't go over 150 degrees fahrenheit it would always get up to about 215 or 220 when totally warm and when driving. As soon as I'd stop it would begin to cool down. Even sitting in traffic blasting the ac it was cooler than at 70 mph with the windows up and no ac. So looking back, a lot of my smaller issues were probably the trans starting to go.

I'm going with the used trans because I'm probably going to sell or trade in the truck. I'll be sure to let the new owner know about the issues and the price will probably reflect that. A reman would be better but I'm trying to save what I can and let someone else get a running and driving Pathfinder at a low cost and give me a little extra to get something new. The used one comes with some sort of warranty too although I don't remember it offhand. I don't think it's as good as 3 years but it might be 1 year or 6 months or 10k miles.

Thanks for the advice and acknowledging that it has happened to some of you. It sucks to be in this position but it is what it is and it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who has dealt with it.