Automotic Transmission Life

Originally Posted by wstar

It's not really a sealed unit. It has drain and fill plugs (much like the rear diff), it just doesn't have an easy-access dipstick/fill tube, and the service manual doesn't state any maintenance interval on their chart that goes to 60K miles (and claims it's "maintenance free").

Also, the procedure for refreshing the fluid in the service manual is a pain in the *** process of repeating: partial drain, partial refill, warm up the transmission and shift through the gears, shut it off, repeat again x3-4 times. And for the final accurate fill level, you have to get the transmission warmed up to a very specific temperature for the fill hole's level to be accurate (and of course, the trans fluid temp isn't available via "normal" OBD-II diagnostics, only Nissan's proprietary Consult tool at the dealership).

I don't trust their "maintenance free" crap though. I've made it just a hair under 20K miles so far on my factory fill (well, + 1/2 qt or so that was added recently as part of installing the trans cooler). The small amount of fluid I spilled out of the lines while installing the cooler looked pretty fugly though, and so I do plan to replace all of the fluid soon now. I'll probably take it to a dealer here (Baker) for them to do their filling procedure.

The big question mark to me right now, is whether I stick with Nissan's Matic-S fluid, or switch to Redline D-4 (the only quality aftermarket one I've seen that actually claims Matic-S compatibility).