Hey fellas,

Sorry but just needed to get this off my chest. So my 2003 Z Touring has been having the infamous 3rd gear grinding issue. I purchased the car a lil over a month ago when it had 35,000 miles on it. To date I probably put about 800 miles on the car, maybe less. Anyways this past monday I took my car to a local Nissan dealer to have it checked out (East Coast Nissan in North Plainfield, NJ). The service guy tells me at first I should get a new, stronger clutch like Stillen to better engage all gears. I call the same guy again today and he tells me that since I bought the car used, the previous owner probably beat the hell out of the car. Well if that's the case, why is it that only 3rd gear is grinding????? So he tells me that in all honesty he wouldn't honor the warranty for the tranny and tells me that I should take the car to the dealer that I originally purchased the car from.

So now I call my dealer(Biener Nissan in Great Neck, NY) to schedule an appointment to check out my car. I spoke with the Business manager there along with a service tech...both people were MORE than willing to help me out and would most definitely honor ANY type of warranty on my car. Any questions I had, they responded back to me via phone or email so fast it was unbelievable

Moral of the story,
Where ever you purchase your vehicle, make sure it's a reputable dealer....and the fact that all Nissan dealership's are independantly owned, they could care less about you unless you purchased your car from them or needed them to perform work on your car not covered under warranty.

 

It doesn't matter that they are independently owned. ANY and ALL dealer should allow you to make a warranty claim, and an easily reproduceable 3rd gear grind is definitely a viable warranty claim. I would report what that dealer told you to NNA.

 

youre lucky theyre taking care of you. my dealer sucks, they told me i have no grinding problems, after several people drove my car and told me i did. (i wanted to confirm i was correct)

i think theyre just too lazy to do the work

 

Haha...yeah...my dealer told me to report that dealer to NNA which I definitely will do .

Most likely I will be getting a new tranny. Would it be wise to get a new clutch and flywheel as well? If so, I was thinking Nismo clutch with JWT flywheel.

 

Hey all,

Just an update...my car's at my dealership but due to the blizzard we had this past weekend it may be a few days before the service techs can drive my car and replicate my 3rd gear grind I've been complaning about.

But I just got one question, even though my car grinds HARDCORE going into 3rd when I start the car up (like every morning for work), after driving the car around for like 15 minutes it seems to be fine, then leaving my car alone overnight and starting it up the next day it grinds like a motha. I know for a fact that the service techs will experience the third gear grind when they test drive the car, but in your opinion will that be enough to warrant a new tranny???

 

Maybe just a new 3rd gear synchro and a good bleeding of the clutch.

 

yes... the third gear grinding is a known issue with the transmission. Nissan is on their 4th or 5th redesign now and is supposed to have it fixed.

Good luck on the aftermarket parts, tho... some dealers will play ball, but most will not. It has to do with the way they have to write up the warranty work to be able to write it off to corporate. Your best bet would be to talk to your master tech directly and see if he'll slide the aftermarket clutch & flywheel in for you for a small under the table charge.

 

Cool...the service tech told me to give him a call in a couple days to get a final answer on my problem...hopefully according to McDuck I should be getting my tranny replaced unless the dealer tries to shaft me somehow...luckily I made friends with the Business Manager at the dealership. She bent over backwards for me just so that I could leave my car there this past weekend when the service guys said they had no room to store my car

 

I went through the BS with three or four dealers before I finally got one to aknowlege my third gear grind. Most dealerships really dont care what kind of problems you have if there isnt much money in it for them. You would think that in Southern California where there is a TON of Zs sold, they would be more receptive. Good Luck!!

 

Funny I just read this, I called the dealer today for the SAME exact problem! They told me to leave it overnight, so they can test it next morning..... but he didn't tell me if this would be warranty or not.. so, not sure if I really want to drop it off for them to test drive it... maybe I will wait until it grinds ALL THE TIME.

 

A couple hours after I had initially dropped the car off they gave me a call saying that they couldn't replicate the problem and that the car was fine end of story. I told them third gear was grinding when I started it up that day to drive to the dealership, and when I got there the engine and tranny were already warmed up so there was no way for the service techs to replicate my problem. So it took me a little while to convince them to keep the car overnite and THEN drive the car because the car ALWAYS grinds the next day. I'll be calling my dealership in a day or two to see what the status is and if they give me any kind of hassle, then . Hopefully my situation turns into a success story so that others with my exact problem won't have to worry about the warranty situation .

 

Go WITH the tech on the test drive. When I went, the tech couldn't replicate my problem either at first because he was lazy shifting between gears (I guess babying it because it was not his car)

I told him to shift it quicker... not powershift, but just make a quick upshift. The minute he did he got the grind and knew something was wrong.

 

Well I called the service techs today at my dealership. They were able to replicate my 3rd gear grinding problem. Actually the tech was like, "Geez your car grinds like crazy in third!!!" So the recommendation was a transmission overhaul . They just now need to verify that the tranny overhaul is covered under warranty, which it is since I bought the extended warranty, and then order me a new tranny which may take a little time. But so far things are looking good .