Hey guys,Have been experiencing this lately and wanted to confirm with you all. (Also asked the local Infiniti dealer's repair dept, but I don't trust them, so I'm asking here)

Basically, car doesn't shift into 4th until after about 10 minutes of driving. This is annoying because A) I don't feel the reassuring 'kick' at 45mph when I exppect and B) it is wasting lots of gas when I'm doing 70mph in 3rd gear. I've only noticed this happening the past month or two. Dealer said that transmission temperature sensor won't let the car shift into 4th until the tranny is warm enough that it won't be damaged (i.e., could be damaged if cold and in 4th). I live in Chicago, so if he's telling the truth, then the weather would explain it (average has been around 30 degrees).

So, is this common?

The dealership is correct.. it wont go into 4th until it is "time"...

if you are concerned about wasting gas, you should let the car warm up... it only takes about 5-10 mins of warm up time! You should NEVER get in and just drive out!

elwesso wrote:The dealership is correct.. it wont go into 4th until it is "time"...

if you are concerned about wasting gas, you should let the car warm up... it only takes about 5-10 mins of warm up time! You should NEVER get in and just drive out!

HAH. I do that all the time. Oh well. I'll stop doing that from now on.

P.S., I though that the need to warm up cars went out with disco and funk music...wha?

who said disco was dead???

Remember that oil does not do a real good job (in fact a real crummy job) of lubricating until it gets to about 100F, or about 5 mins at idle, assuming that it has been sitting overnight.

Werd. Didn't know that either. Is this from experience or is this something you can read about? I mean, where do you guys learn about the more technical aspects of car design, things like oil viscosity etc.? I've always wondered...

From reading experiences of other owners with JATCO built auto transmissions on Ford, Honda, Volvo, Jaguar, BMW and Land Rover forums, it quickly becomes clear that they all need to warm-up their cars new or old in order to get the transmission to behave normally. I guess the design is somewhat complicated and hinders the flow of ATF in cold weather.

All J30's have a JATCO built transmission.

The only tranny's that you don't have to warm-up are those manufactured by ZF, Aisn-Warner, Allison and Dana.

vishesh wrote:Basically, car doesn't shift into 4th until after about 10 minutes of driving. This is annoying.... So, is this common?

I do not find this on my J30 but something similar. My J30 does not lock up the torque converter (in 4th or any gear) until the car is well warmed up. It does shift into 4th at any temperature. While it is not as cold here in California as Chicago (thank god!) I do have other cars that hold 3rd gear until they warm up.

krewzn, so what you're saying is that with your J30 (when the torque converter doens't even lock up) that you basically can't drive until / unless the car is warmed up?