Unpacking the FAILURE of Nissan's X-Tronic CVT

#nissan #cvt Initially celebrated for its smooth transitions and efficiency, the transmission soon faced severe problems, including shuddering and failures, leading to widespread dissatisfaction among drivers. Nissan's response to these issues was widely criticized for being slow and inadequate, sparking a series of lawsuits from unhappy consumers demanding accountability and compensation.

Join us as we delve into the technical breakdowns, Nissan's contentious handling of the situation, and the resulting legal battles. Learn what went wrong, the impact on consumers, and the broader lessons from this automotive fiasco.

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
2:36 CVT Explanation
4:00 Nissan's Early CVT History
5:20 Nissan CVT Debut
7:18 Nissan's Response
9:48 Lawsuits

[CarringtonHollister]

You would think after 32 years Nissan would have had the CVT perfected but nope

[thndr_]

Nissan singlehandedly ruined my perception of CVTs and I suspect a lot of the public's too

[Justaeuropeanman]

I’m confused, my wife owns a medical transportation business, pretty much like a Uber/taxi service to get you to and from hospital/ doctors appointments that medical insurance pays for. She has a fleet of 2-2019 Altimas, 1-2020 Nissan Sentra, 2-2020 Nissan Rouges, and 3-2018 Nissan pathfinder’s. All have CVT’s. The Altimas, Sentra, and Rouges all have over 160, 000 miles since they are driven all day every day none stop and have never gave us any single issue with the CVT. The 3, 2018 Nissan Pathfinders all have over 220, 000 miles and all of those have never gave us a single issue with the CVT. We change the oil in all our Nissans transmissions every 60, 000 miles, and keep up with all other maintenance and not a single one of our Nissans has ever broken down excluding dead batteries of course but that’s pretty normal and nothing major. Reason why we have all Nissan in our fleet is because our friend owns a Nissan dealership and gave us huge discounts on every single one of them. Idk maybe I just got very lucky with our Nissans lol

[Foiiiii]

The biggest mystery is why does Nissan continue using this transmission. They have the new 9-speed AT which is lightyears better than their CVT yet they keep using it which is a risk.

[ad]

I worked selling cars in the mid 2010s. Had so many people trade in their Nissans because of faulty transmissions. The dealer I worked for didn't bother with selling used Nissan vehicles with CVTs. Those went straight to auction.

[mikescaffo]

I have a nissan altima and because of that transmission I will never buy a nother nissan product

[rdworldgarage]

Yes. The Prius eCVT does not use a belt but is a torque split device and very reliable. An actual early belt CVT in a car would be the DAF Daffodil.

[elmaster]

Is weird how many nissans are on the road, how many people keep buying Nissans, a Nissan could have been the perfect affordable car if it wasn't for this 30 year transmission problem.

[TrevorWilliams]

The main problem it’s your “owners may not be maintaining their CVTs” point is that the official service schedule for all of these cars at no point has a fluid change for the CVTs, just “inspect the fluid”… on a transmission without a dipstick… you know these owners are having someone else do this stuff, so they hope the service provider actually does it AND recommends a fluid change when needed. Which is a $300+ job. Nissan brought it on themselves for normalizing the neglect of those transmissions.

Edit: Apparently I've been called out for "lying" or spreading misinformation. I'm not. The passage above hasn't been touched. I've had to lookup the service schedules and maintenance sections of manuals of multiple CVT equipped Nissan passenger vehicles, INCLUDING THE ONE I OWN and it looks like I'm correct. 

In most situations, all that would be done is an inspection of the fluid, unless you are under certain driving conditions or the service dept. of the dealer you take the vehicle to recommends it (after the customer determines if the dealer isn't just trying to drum up business by recommending unnecessary maintenance, look it up, its a common practice). There is no simple, "Just change the fluid every x miles and do it more often if you beat the snot out of it." As a result, the service often doesn't get done and the transmission often fails.

[rastageorge]

One big unanswered question is why was Nissan allowed to continue selling cars with CVT in the USA after the proven defects and high rate of failure. Any other company with a product so defective would have been forced to withdraw that product from the market.
It is criminal that Nissan is still selling cars today with CVT transmissions.

[MrHugemoth]

Evidently many new car buyers failed to do their homework before buying a Nissan CVT. The JATCO CVT problems have been known for many years. I did my research when shopping for a new car in 2018 and bought a new Nissan with a manual transmission.

[ramie-uzxi]

Sad thing is . Nissan along with Toyota were the 2 most reliable cars ever

[brombrom]

Why the reference to the planetary transmission in the Toyota Prius? There is no comparison in design function or even purpose. As I understand it (I'm sure someone can explain it better), the Prius planetary gearset accepts varying inputs from multiple sources (motor and engine, in proportions determined by the computer at any given moment) and transmits the sum of those inputs to the final drive. It's not there to vary the gearing between engine and final drive like a Nissan CVT or any conventional transmission.

[thelazarous]

I'll never forget when my father, who is a mechanic, bought a 2017 Nissan SUV. I immediately told him that he really shouldn't have because of the CVT, but he tried to reassure me that they worked out all the problems. Well, you guessed it, 2023 and it was slipping BAD.

[ThePolaris]

Why would a company continue with a component that they themselves see as defective and is costing them tonnes of money and damaging their brand reputation? The sunk R&D expenditure on this component can't be enough by itself to warrent them being so resistant to change. Why do they want this component SO badly?

[duckamuck]

1989 Subaru Justy was first CVT I can think of in the US. The CVT for Nissan has been a nightmare but I have to give them credit as they are usually the company to implement new technologies prior to everyone else.

[joenissan]

Nissans new CVT-X is all new and should be fairly bulletproof. It’s now a dual pump design with 30% less friction. I’d prefer a traditional automatic myself but Nissan has completely redone their CVTs.

[Alfa]

I work at a Nissan dealership and I can say from what I've seen, do not buy a new Sentra or Rogue. Some cars even with the CVT go higher than 200k miles (ofc I don't know how many transmissions they've had replaced to get there.) However, the 2021-2024 Sentras in particular are so unreliable that they're basically money cows to the service department. We've also had a 2024 Rogue with less than 200 miles that had to have the engine replaced because it had seized.

[ericwhitehead]

My Mitsubishi Lancer ES uses the same transmission. Funny thing is, Mitsubishi transmissions last longer. However, Nissan uses different fluid compaired to Mitsubishi. Coincidence?

[HarleySLA]

Riding lawnmowers use CVTs. People who claim to hate them don't actually hate them, it's just about application. CVTs are perfect for slow, low power vehicles that are driven by grannies. You can't give them hell. The Nissan CVT was a disaster, but they're not all bad. I wouldn't recommend pairing a CVT with anything above 4 cylinders or forced induction, it just doesn't work. Btw I got 30 mpg on the highway with a 5 speed manual with the same 3.5VQ- in a 2005 Nissan Altima SE. That thing had great power, I can't imagine putting a CVT behind it- it would burn that transmission alive. CVTs can't handle power, they're not meant to, they're meant to be efficient. Not everything is a race car nor can it be and that's ok. Everyone needs a grocery getter.