[DocCat]

I plan to buy new Mo this week. I have two rival dealers competing with each other and the offers for my business keep getting better.

ivnurse's tale of the CVT failure sure has me worried, though. I don't have any money to put down on extended warranty.

I'm definitely starting to get cold feet....

What to do?

 

[CVeeT]

I plan to buy new Mo this week. I have two rival dealers competing with each other and the offers for my business keep getting better.

ivnurse's tale of the CVT failure sure has me worried, though. I don't have any money to put down on extended warranty.

I'm definitely starting to get cold feet....

What to do?

I would look at the statistics, out of how many owners here, how many CVT failures . Is it significantly higher than convertional automatic transmission.

I plan to have my transmission serviced as recommended and I admit, I have extended warranty.

To get peace of mind, you have three years to buy it, before the main warranty runs out, if you are concerned.

 

[MightyMo]

There is only that SINGLE report of a high-mileage CVT failure, it's not even remotely close to the scale of the alternator or CVT control module failures we had for the early 2003 and 04 cars. I can't see this one report as statistically significant at this point, in fact you could actually say that says the CVT is pretty darn reliable with such few reported problems.

 

[9495]

I agree with the two posts above. I was researching cars for a full year before I bought my MO, and one of the major reasons that I made the decision I did was because of the relatively few major problems that people had reported.

I was on all the forums for the vehicles I was considering, and the people here were complaining about rattles in the doors with an occasional complaint about the alternator going out under warantee or the CVT failing really early on and also being replaced under warrantee.

On the other car forums, they were complaining about MAJOR issues, and more frequently. Like motor mounts coming off, transmission failing 5-6 times within the first couple years, major engine failures that required their car to be in the shop for several weeks at a time, etc.

ANY car model will have a couple bad apples in the bunch. That's just life. Even the Prius, which is the car ranked highest for customer satisfaction right now (according to Consumer Reports) has had a few issues with individual owners. You can't avoid that completely. But I think that the main problems with the MO are MINOR in comparison to most. Getting so concerned about ONE report like this is over-reacting in my opinion.

Now, that said, $6k to replace the transmission really sucks, and I feel very bad for Randy. I can understand why he's pissed. I would be too. But hearing this one incident certainly doesn't make me any less satisfied with the decision I made to buy this vehicle.

If we start getting more reports of the CVT failing at 90k miles, and it seems to be a more common problem rather than an isolated incident, then you can bet we'll all be on board harrassing Nissan to get their act together and fix it for us. There's a big difference between an isolated incident and an epidemic.

My $0.02...

 

[Stoker]

cold feet

I also agree with the above post. I have driven VW for over 20 years and I am on my 2nd Jetta, 1st one lasted 17 years and 285000KM. Last summer out of the blue my manual transmission broke. Now usually when this happens it is rather castastrophic and the transmission casing sustains heavy damage in containing the failure. I was lucky(sic) as the synchroshaft broke which left me with no driving gears pass 3rd. The tranmission had to be replaced at a cost of $3000 less $1000 for a core replacement. The point is that it can happen to any car at any time. I have never had a manual transmission fail on my and I believe that it is rare.

I would not worry about one transmission that has failed as one tranny does not show a trend. I to feel bad for Randy and I hope that Nissan will take the tranny apart and let him know what cause the failure, it would be interesting to know what the failure mode was.

I also researched the Mo for a year before we bought it as I was concerned about buying a first year car. But after driving it for a year and having the book Lemon Aid descibe it as the best 1st year car that they have seen in a long time, has given me a lot of comfort. I have not bought the extend warranty for the Mo and I do not know if I will. I usually keep my cars for over 10 years and it has worked out very well.

 

[vfr]

Jaak has posted a failure summary in the problems strings. The failure rate is certainly not a statiistical concern today.

I just checked the AcuraMdx site and they are having a few transmission failures at 11k miles and 45k miles.

My only concern is that the transmission is replaced as a unit. This MUST be because of the extreme LOW replacement rate not worth the training of hundreds of mechanics in repair. Surely, if more were to fail as the numbers of vehicles get into hundred of thousands and the miles on them become 100K or more, they would be repaired in terms of the failed component.