Anyone have a similar problem? I've had to skip third gear for the first fifteen minutes until the gear oil warms up. 2500 miles on car since new [9/11/02] and this problem has become more and more noticeable as the weather grew colder over the past 1200 miles and 3 months.

Is a synthetic gear oil the answer or will Nissan be shipping a new trans. here to Pennsylvania?

Dealer claims Nissan has no service bulletins on this and will look at car to try to determine problem. I've had manual transmissions for over twenty years and the only time I had anything similar was on a 94 Toyota 4X4 Pickup; again once the oil heated up the shifting was perfectly fine.

 

I have the EXACT same problem... Nissan is looking at it right now (along with replacing the rack and pinion... car stopped steering) What I did was ease it into 3rd till the car warms up. But yes, I think this is an unacceptable solution, and Nissan should go ahead and release a TSB for this somewhat common problem.

 

I have the exact same problem... please let me know when NISSAN has the fix. thanx

 

...actually I had the same problem too. It originally started when the car was cold... heat it up some and it wouldn't grind. Now it grinds all the time... unless the service tech needs to recreate the situation

 

Snoop I'm in the same boat as you. Just in the last week third is starting to grind on the shift. Boy am I a peeved. Only 3200 miles and it's getting harder and harder to shift into third. All other gears shift fine.

 

That is pretty much the same time I started having the problem... 3000k miles. It really does suck!!! to the point that I didn't even drive the car that much... and when I did... I would skip shift =(

Noted Problems on my 350Z.

- Alignment (car pulls to the right even after "aligned")
- Notorious Bose Problem
- Grease Streaks
- Clevis + Transmission = 3rd gear grind

* I hope this car doesn't have to be serviced as much as it looks...

 

I have the same issue. My car went to the dealership last week. They called Nissan Tech. Nissan Tech advised them to order a new Transmission and a Clevis Pin. If you are having a grinding in your transmission, you definitely need to have the dealership look at it, and advise them that you know that this is an issue that Nissan has been working with other owners.

Unfortunately, at some point Nissan will find a fix and stop replacing transmissions and start repairing them. But, as of now they don't seem to have reached that point. I don't know if it is that they don't have the proper repair worked out, or if it's a training issue. I am just glad that my tranny will probably be swapped next week. It is kind of embarrassing grinding in 3rd in a new car. I did find that if I delayed between pressing the clutch pedal and actually shifting, that the tranny would usually not grind then.

Good luck to everyone getting their issues resolved.

JD

 

Took my Z to Don Davis Nissan for the 3rd gear grind. Today they called and told me they were gonna need to replace the trans and the AC compressor. I'm pushing for tires too but no luch yet.

Lets see 3000 miles and I need a new compressor, transmission and stereo amp. You sure these aren't built by Chevrolet?

I got a volvo for a rental, man that turbo is a blast!

 

Just curious but what is everyone's build number? This will help us determine if Nissan had a bad batch of synchos or if this is a design problem. I'm in the 4050 range. Gear grinding started @ ~4k miles on the car.

If this starts looking like a design problem I'm not going be getting warm fuzzies. Just means we're going to be having the same problem in another 4k miles.

 

Well... hopefully with a new transmission and clevis... it should clear the issue... should it not??

 

VIN on my Perf. model is 000161; 7/02 build date, and 9/02 delivery. First one delivered to the dealer, and a very early car.

I asked this same question in another forum last week [ie: the one about Mobil 1, I believe] so I have to go and see what replies this has gotten. I was thinking it may have been a "Bad" production day on earlier cars, but it seems not to be the case at this point.

This upshift problem on my car still goes away after the oil gets warmed, but it shouldn't do this at all. Even if Nissan replaces the trans. I thing I'm going to an Amsoil or Mobil 1 product in the rear diff. and trans. More research to be done yet on my end first.

 

Well if the replacement transmission has the exact same parts as the faulty one, then another failure is eminent.

This is why I'd like to see everyones build # to see if there is some sort of trend. If there is a random dispersion over the run then it points to a design problem over QC issues.

 

I took the car to Courtessy Nissan, they couldn't reproduce it.. then again they couldn't reproduce a rattle I told them where it was and the speed to reproduce it

I may need to bring it in and let them run it when it's cold, but I just hate doing without it overnight.

I spoke to a representative from NNA and they just said they can check the settings on the clutch again, but if it is releasing half way up then it should be o.k.

What could be the cause of this to only happen when it is cold?

 

hwj:

I have the same problem but more when shifting from 1st to 2nd...it's an unsatisfying shift. It does not happen all the time even in cold weather (minus 20 degrees celsius weather!).

I have posted this problem earlier in December:

https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....st+to+2nd+gear


It has not been as bad recently. I have driven my car ~3300K so far.

 

New transmission will be here in 3-4 days. This seems to be the quick solution for Nissan.

 

I just got my transmission replaced... it doesn't feel the same ne more... I don't like it. I talked to the tech / service manager... they told me it was a NEW tranny and it was supposedly the same as the other. The shifter feels a tad higher now... and it doesn't go into gears nicely.

*For those of you who had dealers who could not recreate the problem... make sure to be there in the car when they test drive.
My tech couldn't get it to grind because of the way he was driving it. He would put it into first... then neutral for sec... then second..
So he was really babying it ... you gotta just throw it from first to second... to third... no neutral delay. Because mine would not grind if I put it into neutral then 3rd. Hope this helps some of you...

 

How about this part of the problem? Any similar results?

With the car cold, not moving, engine running, in neutral:
try to shift directly into third.
The grind is amazing and it won't go into gear.

Double clutch it, put it in first, move forward a foot and back to neutral: try to shift directly into third again.
The grind is NOT there!

I've done this a few times over the past month, the first couple of times I thought it was me. I can say this is a repeatable problem; again, it won't do this 100% of the time. Yet, once everything is warmed up, no grinding what-so-ever.

How about a 2-4 upshift then a 4-3 downshift while cold? With this pattern, it does not grind. Certainly not the most efficient way to get into third when accelerating.

Dealer gets the car next week for their guys to look it over and scratch their heads for a while.

Oh, what fun. I'm glad it's the winter so the Z doen't get used too much.

 

Service agent called and told me that I got the last availble spare transmission in the states. Should get my car on Monday. It took 5 days to find get the transmission.

The rest of you guys may be waiting a while.

 

I hope the next Nissan Z parts container to arrive in California has transmissions in it that are correct, and not the defective ones we recieved in our cars.

 

i got the same tranny problem, same symptoms. Only when cold, and goes away when warmed up. Only on third gear. Dont know if its doing long term damage. It also does not happen if I double clutch into thurd.

Im hesitatnt to take it to the dealer if there is no TSB or recall prodiced yet, then your gonna have idiots driving your car and guessing and replacing things that were perfectly fine inthe first place. nothing worse then having someone do this work on the z for te very first time, screwing it up for good.