I live 2 miles away from work, so my car is driven for only 5 minutes in the morning. When I start-up my car after work, I get a grinding noise from my engine that lasts only about one second, then it's over. The problem is that this doesn't happen everyday. I took my car back to Nissan, and the noise won't happen for them. So I can't get it fixed. My car is AT if this makes any difference. Anyone got any ideas on what's causing this, or how I can get it fixed???

 

My car has done this maybe 5 times over the past month, and it seems related to colder weather cold-starts. Well, now I am grinding when I shift from 2nd to 3rd (6MT) so ...

What next, is my hatch gonna start flying upen for no reason above 120 mph... or maybe my headlights will start flickering at 4000 RPM's when driving in reverse.

 

I have the same issue, hope its nothing that can be blamed on my super charger(by dealer).

 

I have no engine mods...and the coldest temperature my car has seen is maybe 60 degrees. Can't figure it out...

 

mine does the same thing so i put it up in the air on a lift and had a friend start it after it had been sitting for awhile and it seems that its the starter. It sounds almost as if the gear drive on the starter sticks on the way down from the fly wheel and grinds for only a millisecond

 

took mine to nissan supposivley called a "dry" start. I was told it was the cvtcs soleniod on the intake side of my cam shaft they did nothing about ti and said it was fine

 

This noise could also be due to a defective anti-drainback valve on your oil filter. If the ADBV leaks, oil drains out of the filter when your car sits. When you start up with a dry filter, the engine runs briefly without a steady supply of oil.
If you notice a change in this noisy behavior after your next oil change, there's a good chance the ADBV was at fault.
Mika

 

I think your on the right track. I might replace my starter just for the heck of it its 2019 and i got an 08 hr and on this hella old thread lol.

 

Possibly the starter if its got moderately high mileage and wear, since this thread is from 2005, assuming the car was newer then with low miles, low oil will cause a loud startup noise in cold weather. The oil level dipstick is useless, members and even Nissan techs had trouble reading it and found low oil level to be the cause. I bought my 05 model in 05 and was a common issue.

 

I have this same issue. 06 6-speed 110k miles. Only happens for like 1.5 seconds after the car is started. My initial guess was the belts or pulleys but it does seem like a grinding of sorts, as if the starter is getting a little lazy to disconnect from the flywheel so that makes sense. However, I don't see a functional issue with it, just a minor annoyance for 1.5 seconds of my life at a time and the car isn't daily driven.