The CVT Fluid in 2008 Nissan Altimas (and Nissan/Infiniti) vehicles in general require draining and filling. Do not believe the owner's manual. The manual does not list a change interval in months or miles for the CVT Fluid. You might even hear that the OEM fluid lasts a "lifetime" from the dealership. That is a lie! It will last until the factory warranty runs out, then the transmission will hesitate from a stop. Eventually it will fail. I drain and fill every 5 years or 60k miles by removing the bottom of the transmission pan and letting old CVT fluid out. It takes about 4-5 qts of Valvoline CVT Fluid to refill to the bottom hole of the dipstick depending on the angle of the ramps. CVT Fluid expands when hot so it's close enough. The car in question has 212,000+ miles and it's still on the same transmission. You do not need the Nissan brand CVT Fluid since I've been using Valvoline CVT Fluid which is Nissan NS-2 compatible.

If I am accelerating from a stop sign or a traffic light or even a plain old stop from traffic, my car sometimes will not go anywhere. When this happens, I have to press the gas pedal to the floor (for roughly 7 seconds), and then the car will zoom to 60 mph and the RPMs will sky rocket. There is never any warning when it is about to happen and happens whenever it wants wherever it wants.

I brought it twice to the shop and my mechanic couldn't find anything. Nothing came up on the test he preformed and he even took it for a long ride twice. There were no recalls last time I checked (I can't remember when I looked). It's a pain to deal with and I am still not sure what it could be. My mechanic said it COULD be the transmission, but he was not positive. If anyone is experiencing this please let me know.