Well, just to refresh, as many of you know my tranny has made a grinding sound under light load since day one. Since it has happened from day one it has nothing to do with abuse or track driving. As a matter of fact, Nissan knew I was taking the car to the track after the engineers first saw the car and I was told to take it anyway and "drive it like I normally would." LOL, I know I was the guinea pig.

The sound goes away when you accelerate harder. It's not overly loud, but you can hear it pretty easily with the radio off as you enter most gears while going up the box. The tranny has also had, from day one, what I would consider an extreme amount of gear whine. It sounded like it had a damn supercharger!!

This was the second time that Nissan has sent engineers to look at my car. They had the car for 2 days and this is what they are now going to do. They are ordered a new tranny and a new clutch assembly for my car and are installing it next week. They are then going to tear down my old parts to find out what the hell it really is. The fact is, they don't know what it is right now.

Kinda sucks, but the R&R will only take one or two days, so not too bad. My only concern is that if a design problem is found, my car will have had the same old design parts reinstalled.

Please post here in this thread if you are having a similar problem as that is what Nissan has requested I ask of you guys. Thanks!

 

raceboy,

As you know from your previous threads, I have the same/similar problem as yours from day one when I took the car home from the dealer.

My car have metal rattling background noise while driving. Also louder metal rattling noise while upshifing from 2nd to 3rd or 3rd to 4th.

My car just passed 1200 miles over the weekend, so I start revving it harder, i.e. over 5000rpm. Seem like my engine/tranny doesn't like to be revved hard, sometime it make more metal rattling noise. It is getting frustrating. Hope Nissan is listening here and they can find a fix soon.

 

What is it exactly that you guys are referring to? When I have my windows down, and radio off, I can hear mechanical transmission sounds of gears going in place...This is apparent when going from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 (Its almost like a clunk clunk sound)..after this I dont hear it... Is this what you are referring to? This is my first manual car, so any sound sounds suspicious to me.

 

Oh and also...At low rpms in low gears...my transmission does seem harsh when picking up speed. Is this also normal?

 

It's not a clunking noise of the gear engagement. It is a ginding noise as you shift into the next gear at lower rpm's under virtually no load. As soon as you put a bit of load on it, it goes away.

 

Please take your car to the dealer right away. I'll PM you my personal info so you can have your dealer contact Nissan and reference my case.

 

So, Is the clunking noise of gear engagement ok then? Do you experience this at all? Or should I have it checked out you think?

 

Another question. bear with me please raceboy, I am a manual noobie, I admit.

Now when you say grinding noise into next gear at lower rpms under virtually no load...do you mean when you are only slightly giving gas or No gas at all? Like lets say I shift from 1st to second at about 3000 rpm at 1st...shift seems normal (other than the clunking sound I mentioned) but when i start to give a lil bit of gas into second..it sounds a little rough...But then wouldnt it sound rough because rpms are climbing?

 

The gear whine annoys me too, and I'm hard of hearing.

I get the grinding at low speed too. I get around it by shifting by feel, which results in a slightly slower shift. Essentially you feel for when the shift lever is willing to move.

 

Not to take away from anything you guys have said BUT people tend to be a little paranoid about their new cars. I was when I got my first manual...But I hope you guys find out for sure.

 

Mine is for sure!! They are ripping out the tranny and clutch. The sound was verified by numerous Nissan engineers, but they could not pinpoint the problem. This is the first major problem I have ever had on a new car and I have had quite a few.

 

I have gear whine that sounds like a supercharger and a noisy throw out bearing. No clunks or grinds though. I'm going to mention the stuff when I go for my first oil change so it's all documented.

 

It's when you give it just a little bit of throttle. As you give it more and the revs pick up a bit, it goes away. If you get the noise started and then hold a constant throttle, the noise stays. Sometimes even from a stop in 1st I get the grinding noise as well.

 

Steve,

Thanks for keeping us up to date. Hopefully, this will turn out to be something other than a design flaw. However, Nissan may find themselves in the same situation Honda did with some of the first NSXs. It is good to hear that Nissan is taking this case serious, and looking to track down the root cause.

Again, I am sorry to hear that you have to go through this.

JD

 

Thanks! I am not really worried about it at all. There are much more serious obstacles in life and the key to happiness is keeping your problems in perspective.

 

Well said Raceboy .

 

I think any sounds like this are not normal. Today I tried to listen carefully while shifting gears at low speeds with window open and stereo off. I couldn't hear anything at all.

 

Yup, very hard to call any grinding noise, "normal."

 

Too bad I can't find a chromoly lightweight flywheel and performance clutch to put in as long as it's going to be apart!!

 

BUMP

I keep getting questions.