SO I BOUGHT MY NISSAN SENTRA USED AND IT HAD 38,000 MILES ON IT. THE ISSUE WITH THE TRANSMISSION STARTED ABOUT 2 MONTHS INTO OWNING THE VEHICLE. IT JERKS AND SHAKES WHEN I'M GOING DOWN A HILL. THE ACCELERATION IS HORRIBLE BECAUSE IT FEELS LIKE IT GETS STUCK IN HIGH GEAR AND THEN IT SLOWS DOWN. THEN WHEN I'M ABOUT TO COME TO A STOP, IT FEELS LIKE IT'S GOING TO DIE. I HAVE A TEENAGER THAT WILL BE DRIVING THIS VEHICLE SOON AND I FEEL VERY UNCOMFORTABLE LETTING HIM DRIVE THIS CAR DUE TO THE POSSIBILITY OF IT FAILING ON HIM. I WOULD LIKE THIS TO BE CORRECTED AND FEEL NISSAN IS LIABLE FOR THE THIS ISSUE. HOW MAY I GET IN ON THIS LAWSUIT?

This is a Nissan Sentra 2013 first CVT transmission was replaced at or near 28,000 miles under warranty, currently vehicle is at at or near 80,000 miles when RPM's on motor cycle up and down, transmission slipping when traveling. If they (Nissan) had this problem with CVT transmissions why would they not correct problem.

The dealership gave verbal estimate to replace transmission for $4,000.00 or offered a $1.00 on trade in for new or used vehicle. Why would they think I would want another Nissan vehicle? Why would they think I wanted a new car payment?

I hope they go bankrupt for not taking care of customers

My car was taken to the dealer 3 times before the warranty was up, which was March of 2018. I was always told they couldn't identify the problem. So of course, once the warranty was up, a code finally set. This was addressed at no cost to me, but the problem was not fixed. The next time I took it in, they replaced another part and that cost me $350. Within a day and a half of that repair, the issue was worse and I mean a lot worse! I took my car back and they finally put in a new transmission for which they charged me $975. They stated that Nissan would cover 80%, I guess they did otherwise it would have been a lot more. What also irks me though is they would only give me a 12,000 mile/12 month warranty on their new part!! The final repair was completed in December 2018.

Note: I am not a mechanic, any knowledge shared in here is based off of my own research and conversations with mechanics regarding CVT transmissions and Nissan cars in general.

I purchased this car in Feb. 2018 after doing some research online and seeing that there was a transmission issue with some of the Nissan's on the road. Like anything, you have to take what you read on the internet with a grain of salt.. (ironic now that I am here) so I ended up purchasing the car WITH an extended Power-Train Warranty as a safety net. At the time of purchase, the car had roughly 60k miles on it. I did not notice a shudder or anything when I test drove it. I don't actually remember the exact time that passed before I did notice it, but I didn't think anything of it for quite awhile.

It wasn't behaving like any of the cars that I read about in reviews or complaints. Honestly, I figured that most people just didn't understand how a CVT transmission works and wanted to complain due to their own negligence and/or ignorance. A lot of complaints consisted of RPMs wildly varying while the car was accelerating, this was not my issue at all. I mean, yes, the RPM's DO fluctuate but that is part of a CVT transmission.

My issue was occasionally when I would slow down for say, a red light, and that light turned green and I immediately accelerated it would do this shudder. It would immediately even out and I learned to drive it so I would barely ever get the shudder. Then, it started to progressively get worse. It was harder for me to avoid causing the car to shudder. Eventually, I just stopped trying. I should probably mention that during that time it isn't like I didn't mention this to various mechanics that are familiar with CVT transmissions. I even had a (formally) trusted mechanic try to diagnose the issue. He came up empty and told me he couldn't get it to shudder and that it was most likely nothing more than the CVT trying to gauge where it needed to be.

Fast-forward until this fall. I have had the car now for 8 months. The shudder is now so predictable that I brought it in to our Honda dealer where we purchased our other car (2013 Civic - awesome car) and asked them to do a Drain and Fill on the transmission (they call it that instead of a transmission flush for some reason) and brought up that I thought there was something wrong with the transmission's performance. I brought it in this past Friday (10/12/18) and while I was waiting they came and told me that although they could do the transmission service, they had to get the fluid and the parts from Nissan itself. The parts would cost them about $280 without labor. It would be cheaper to do the transmission service at the Nissan dealership instead.

With that information in mind, I still asked if we could do a test drive with a technician so I could show him what I thought was off about the transmission's performance. Of course we could, so a few minutes later we were off. It took a little coaching as you have to slow down and then aggressively accelerate in order to produce the shudder, but once the technician heard/felt it he asked if I had a warranty on the car. Concerned, I replied that I did and asked why. He told me he had another Nissan in a different bay that he was working on with the same exact problem. He thought it might need a software update. Software updates are of course, done only through Nissan.

Once I left the Honda dealership, I made a call to one of the local Nissan dealerships and asked them about a transmission service and software update. I tend to ramble when I am nervous, so I mentioned the shudder and the Nissan technician stopped me immediately. He explained that neither a software update nor a transmission service was going to solve the shuddering issue. He said (and he was very confident) that if there is a shudder like I described, it was the transmission and it most likely has a internal failure. The only fix? Replace the transmission. Since he has not seen the car yet, he can't be sure but he is confident that is what he will find when I do bring it in this Wednesday (10/17/18).

So.. currently, the car is up to go to Nissan this coming week to be scanned and diagnosed for a transmission failure. The Nissan technician asked me to bring in my warranty information and he will start the claims process for me. He informed me that this may take a few days to do and to set up a rental car or other arrangements.

In my personal opinion, Nissan sucks. There are thousands of complaints with these transmissions in varying years, I have seen them as new as a 2015 Altima on another site. Even knowing what I was getting into in the beginning, I didn't really expect to have to replace the transmission 10-15k miles into owning it. Like I mentioned previously, I just figured most of the complaints I read were from people that had issues - because, let's be honest, 9/10 times the only people who post reviews are the unhappy ones. In this case, I was wrong. It is a common issue with the CVT transmissions in Nissan cars and Nissan is doing nothing about it that I can see. They just keep burying the issue and hope that it goes away.

It's not going away. Did you know, I was flipping through an auto magazine, the ones with the ranks of the brands of cars for the year? And did you know where Nissan fell on the list? Below Ford. I mean, c'mon. Ford?! No offense to Ford lovers, but they don't have the best reputations. The only brands that I can remember that ranked lower than Nissan were Chrysler, Jeep (second to bottom of the barrel shockingly), and Fiat (no surprise.. bottom of the list). There were more in between that but that is what I remember.

Anyways, I will try to remember to keep this updated with how my experience goes. How much my warranty actually covers, what I pay out of pocket, etc. for those who are wondering if they are in the same boat.

Toodles!

Update from Oct 21, 2018: The car was seen by Nissan, but they didn't get any reports from the scan they did. The car had two recalls for a software update and an air bag issue so I had those taken care of and the technician wants me back for an oil change in <1000 miles to check to see if the software update is the solution for why they weren't getting any failure information on the transmission. Will update as soon as that happens.

I bought a Nissan thinking it would last, as they use to be reliable cars. I do a daily commute to work 100 miles a day. Starting around 98,000 miles the car began having a weird jerking like something was wrong with a tire or I drove over a bumpy road from first and second gear at times. Wouldn't happen all the time but here and there.

Then one day I went to give it gas and it wouldn't go. I was told to clean my fuel injectors which I did. I stopped having the issue of not picking up any speed but the weird jerking and bumping still occurred here and there. Now at 113,000 it has gotten worse as now when I drive and if I give it to much gas it will stick in a high gear and I have to pull over and place in park and then get back on the road. But now it is hesitating to go into gear and I am driving it until the stupid thing breaks.

I have already called three transmission places and the cost will range from $4500-3800. I really cannot believe Nissan is not stepping up the plate with these numerous complaints and class action lawsuits and us as the buyers are the ones suffering. I also have a friend who has a 2014 Nissan Sentra who hasn't had a car in 30 days due to his transmission going out at 60,000.

Update from Jul 24, 2018: Brought my car in and my transmission was shot. Had transmission replaced at 113,700. The total to fix was $4,491.00 at the dealership. Fortunately, I still had an extended mechanical warranty that I didn't realize I still had that was good up to 120,000 otherwise I don't know what I would have done.