Just got a 2004 M45 and wanted to start good maintaince from the get go

[Amesdude25]

Hi all,

I just got a 2004 M45 and wanted to know what fluids and stuff I should do to maintain it properly. Also are there any mods out there that I can do for performance and the like?

Thanks,

Danniel

[gniknave]

Congrats Amesdude!! Definitely use Mobil 1 oil and atf too I believe. It'll help you out in the long run. I'm thinking of getting some type of NICO meet going for the bay area because I'm seeing more folks from this area joining NICO than any other area. I'm located in Walnut Creek, but I'm in Palo Alto pretty often too. Hit me on AIM sometime: evanvking

Where did you get your M from? Peninsula, Niello, or Hendrick?

[qship96]

double check trans fluid specs in the owners manual,i remember the newer nissans 5 speed auto taking a special fluid.other than that,if it is a used car,change oil and rear with synthetic-mobil,amsoil,or redline.

[gniknave]

double check trans fluid specs in the owners manual,i remember the newer nissans 5 speed auto taking a special fluid.other than that,if it is a used car,change oil and rear with synthetic-mobil,amsoil,or redline.

Nissan Matic D if I remember correctly

[rsiwicki]

I don't remember much about this, but there was some type of transmission software reprograming and differential change to improve the performance of the car that was offered for free by Infiniti. Might want to check to see if this has been done.

There are no known performance mods in the US for that car or the Q45 unfortunately. Too small of a market to support and R&D into the car. The M45 is a very sweet ride indeed. Maybe by chance you could find somebody to rebuild the rearend with a different gearing and build a custom mandrel bent CAT back exhaust.

If anybody can build you a higher rearend ratio it would be Unitrax in California. See other thread in this forum about rearend rebuilding. It will not be cheap...looking at $1,200 minimum. Nothing is cheap on these cars when it comes to maintenance or modifications.

Find a local mandrel bending exhaust shop to build you a new system and use only magnaflow mufflers. They are the only ones with the least amount of restriction.

Congrats on your car....

[maxnix]

And Infiniti dealers are not cooperative about putting in non-Nissan ATF while the car is under warranty. Did the new Mx5 transmissions become unsealed? Think there was a dipstick available as an owner add-on option for the old ones.

Amesdudue25 is to be commended for the correct prememptive approach to long term maintenance.

[Amesdude25]

Thanks Everyone!

gniknave - I'm in for the meet! I bought it from Steven's Creek Infiniti (in San Jose). I actually have a 1990 Q45 but wasn't sure if I should use the excate same fuilds as I do on my Q. I leased this car (paid the lease all at once though for two years) but I WILL be purchasing it after the lease. I going to gaurage it in the winter. I was actually looking at the G35 coupe and saw the M45 off to the side with a $10,000 off sign. I was very intrested in the M45 but my sales rep was actually try to get me to look at the other cars G35, FX45, 2006 M45. But the 2006 looks like a G35 sedan, just bigger and I recall that the 2006 has less horse power too. So I got a brand new 2004 M45 $53k (COMPLETELY LOADED) for $41.5K plus aftermarket rims. After I purchased it I went directly on to NICO and look up some info. I was surprised to see that they made only 18,900 of them?! So I'm guessing that parts and normal wear and tear stuff will be really hard to find and VERY expensive at the least right? But my email address is [email protected] so let me know whats going on with the meet, I'm definatly in! Thanks

qship96 - If I change all the fluids as recommened will Infiniti void my warrenty? Also it's leased so would that complicate matters further? Oh I'm purchasing it after my lease is done. Thanks

gniknave - So your recommending to only use Nissan transmission fluid or that it can only take Nissan transmission fluid? What about a transmission cooler, again would this void my warrenty? I have a q45 and it's just got is third and I have installed a transmission cooler on it (I'm the third owner but she doing good now). Thanks

rsiwicki - Thank, I'm actually going back to the dealer to have my new rims installed and will ask them to upgrade the transmission software if it needs it. Also where is Unitrax at in CA? I live in the bay area and defaitly want to look into this. Have any other M45 owners had it done? I'll do research on a local exhaust shop in my area (a little more growl would be nice too! ;-) Thanks

maxnix - What do you mean by "Did the new Mx% transmissions become unsealed?". Was Infiniti claiming that non-Nissan transmission fluid caused leaks? Has this been proven? Are you also tell me that it has no transmission dipstick? I'm going to go out side and look after work. To tell you the truth I didn't even look to see if it had a transmission dipstick (never thought a car wouldn't have one?). But you think I can order an add-on? Would the dealer have this? Thanks for the attaboy, I have a previously neglected (mechanically anyways, the interior is in mint condition) Q45 and know that these cars need to be maintained from the get go to make them last... and I plan to have this one a llllllloooooonnnnnggggg time! :-)

Thank everyone! Please reply!

Danniel

[Amesdude25]

sorry about the mispelling everyone... sent it out with out spell checking it! DOH!

[szh]

Nissan Matic D if I remember correctly

NO!!! All the new Infiniti transmissions use Nissan Matic J fluid and these are not available in any non-Nissan formulation. DO NOT use anything else - you will definitely void the warranty. I checked with Infiniti headquarters about this.

The M45 owners and service manuals have many locations in bold type where they state that using anything other than J fluid will void the warranty.

Z

[szh]

Hi all,

I just got a 2004 M45 and wanted to know what fluids and stuff I should do to maintain it properly. Also are there any mods out there that I can do for performance and the like?

Thanks,

Danniel

Here is my overkill approach (which has worked on many cars and seems to have made my M45 engine burn way less oil than the current-gen of 340HP engines! )

Some of the items (see below) are definitely overkill, but I want my M45 to last a long, long time and these practices have made my cars go for many miles when I buy them new - the one time I bought a Q45 on lease return, I had problems with a transmission failure at 104k miles, even though I flushed it at 60k and 90k miles! Clearly, the previous owner had not treated his car well.

1. Please use good dino oil (Castrol GTX 5W-30 or Chevron Supreme 5W-30) for the first 7,500 to 10,000 miles to seat the rings properly. Drive the car fairly hard in that period to get everything to sit well. Do not baby the engine - even in the first 1,500 miles!

2. Do many early oil changes (the Mercedes Benz recommendations are an interesting read!) to get rid of the manufacturing "stuff" that get into the oil in the first few miles of driving!

First oil change at 500-1,000 miles (if you can afford it, do one at 100-200 miles too); second oil change at 3,750 and then everything from then on at 3,750 miles maximum. Always change the filter at every oil change.

3. After 7,500 miles, switch to Mobil 1 Synthetic 0W-40. I get mine from a local Kragen and take it in to the dealer for the change every 7,500 miles. In the intervening 3,750 miles point, I have a local shop change it out for me (easier than reaching under the car myself.)

The M45 and Q45 engines are prone to using oil (some have reported as low as 1 qt every 1000 miles), and good early treatment may avoid this. Mine seems to do 1 qt (or less) every 3750 miles.

4. At 7,500 - 10,000 miles, replace the ATF (definitely use the Nissan Matic J fluid - anything else will void the warranty.) Do the same every 30,000 miles after that - including a flush (uses more fluid and costs more, unfortunately.) I also flushed mine at 7,500, but was definitely way overkill.

5. At 7,500 - 10,000 miles, replace the Cooling Fan fluid. This is unique - the M45 has a fluid that cools the fan ... this is different from the cooling system fluid (the Infiniti service manager did not know about this when I had him do it! ) Use Nissan PSF II or equivalent.

6. At 7,500 to 10,000 miles, replace the differential gear oil. Use Mobil 1 Synthetic 75W-90 Gear Oil (API GL-5 at least, but Mobil 1 is best.)

8. At 15,000 miles, replace the engine cooling system fluid. Use Nissan Anti-freeze or equivalent.

9. At 22,500 miles, or every two years minimum, flush and replace the brake fluid completely. Use Nissan Brake Fluid or equivalent DOT 3. There are some DOT formulations that should be avoided - I forget the specific ones (please do a search on these!)

I am a firm believer in making sure that good early treatments are done. This makes my cars last a long time without giving me problems ...

By the way, your story about the purchase sounds very similar to mine. My wife and I went in to get a G35 and I ended up getting a 2003 M45 for about 8600 less than MSRP. Off the lot at just over $34,000! Which was lower than what they were selling the G35 Coupe for!

I have posted the story before - please do a search!

Z
Modified by szhosain at 6:15 PM 3/9/2005

[szh]

And Infiniti dealers are not cooperative about putting in non-Nissan ATF while the car is under warranty.

There is no after-market equivalent to the Nissan J fluid either, as far as I know! Used in all the new transmissions from Infiniti and Nissan.

Quote »Did the new Mx5 transmissions become unsealed?[/quote]If I understand your comment correctly, yes, there is a way for the fluid to be changed out in the 2003/04 M45 transmissions - the early conjectures about new Nissan/Infiniti transmissions being "sealed for life" turned out to be inaccurate - at least in my case for sure.

Quote »Amesdudue25 is to be commended for the correct prememptive approach to long term maintenance.[/quote]Yes, indeed!

Z

[szh]

Thank, I'm actually going back to the dealer to have my new rims installed and will ask them to upgrade the transmission software if it needs it.

Yes, there is a Technical Service Bulletin out on it, certainly for the 2003 M45 that I have, but I am not sure if it applies to late model 2004 M45's.

Z

[szh]

Oh, by the way, Congratulations!

I got my M45 from Frontier Infiniti too ... my service rep is William Perry and he does a great job!

Z

[rsiwicki]

here is the link to the gear builders. Even though they don't specifically list one on their website, trust me they can do it. I don't think anybody has ever done any speed mods to the M45 yet, but you are more than welcome to be the first. I was the first on a couple of my mods that I did and so far so good, but they were not cheap. There are a few 90-96 Q45's running a 4.08 rearend inplace of the stock 3.54 gearing. I maybe running a 4.08 rearend finally as well if everything goes good then next couple of months. I did have a 4.08 rearend in my car for a week and it really transformed the car, but it was not put together correctly so I had to put back in my stock rearend. I don't know what gearing you run currently in the M45. You will also need to install a different speedo gear in the transmission to keep the speedo accurate, but that task is small in comparison to doing the rearend.

http://www.gounitrax.com/main.html

[gniknave]

NO!!! All the new Infiniti transmissions use Nissan Matic J fluid and these are not available in any non-Nissan formulation. DO NOT use anything else - you will definitely void the warranty. I checked with Infiniti headquarters about this.

The M45 owners and service manuals have many locations in bold type where they state that using anything other than J fluid will void the warranty.

Z

Actually Matic J is what I meant. I just had a bottle of matic D in front of me when I typed that

[szh]

Actually Matic J is what I meant. I just had a bottle of matic D in front of me when I typed that

No sweat! I am at the age, where I do this easily all the time. Oh, well!

Z

[SIDVICIOUS]

CONGRATS...YOU WILL LOVE IT FOR YEARS TO COME. DON'T YOU JUST LOVE THE SLOT CAR SOUND IT MAKES WHEN YOU FLOOR IT?

[Amesdude25]

Hi everyone, I finally figured out how to post pictures!

[maxnix]

Hi everyone, I finally figured out how to post pictures!

Cool! Where are they?

[Amesdude25]

You can't see my post? I add it to my tag line. Is there another place I can put it?

[szh]

How is the M45 running? Did you follow an early maintenance schedule? What is your oil consumption?

I am at 45k miles on my 2003 M45 and it is doing very well. Just a few hiccups over the years, but I am still very pleased with the way everything is on the car!

Z

[Amesdude25]

Ya it's running good. Not using any oil and haven't had any problems with it. I changed the oil at 500mile and then every 3,000. Oh one prob I have is the brakes. They always make noise first in the morning and every once awhile during the day but there is plenty of pad left...