Problem from Parked to Reverse transition.
 

Hello all,
I am concerned with the park and/or parking brake system on my Z. First things first my car has less than 3000k miles on the odometer.

Situation:
When I start the car, disengage the P-Brake and move the shifter from park to reverse I can feel a forceful thud right under my seat, almost exactly as if someone just took a sledgehammer to the underbody.

Anyone else experience this? Is it normal?

Check your transmission fluid

If you have 3000k and a harsh sound when shifting I wouldn't bother posting this, it'd be right to the dealership.

Is the car on a slope/incline while parked?

Does the car still roll with the trans in neutral and the parking brake engaged. Could be an easy way to check on a hill to make sure the parking brake is working.

Most owner's manuals state that on an automatic transmission cars to:
Park the vehicle
Put gear selector in Neutral
Set the Parking Brake
Let off the brake pedal
Set the gear selector to Park

The ones I have read state this to avoid the symptoms you have.

Otherwise take the car in for warranty.

This.

If your on a hill and put it into park and the hand brake you will get this. Happens to my cars on the driveway (which is a huge hill...) unless i let the handbrake engage first and then put it into park.

i always do this and never have that problem. before i knew about this, every auto i had would do this

wow I have this same issue. I made a thread about it too months ago. It happens to me on flat surfaces. It feels like the shifter is stuck, then when it gets to R, a big thud sound.

Thanks for the responses guys, I'm hunching on that its under normal operation hence the tranny fluid is not serviceable. "Maintenance free" as Nissan states in the handbook. Also to restate that the car is basically still new with less than 3k miles.

It was mentioned a few posts back about being parked on an incline, it does happen on an incline but happens just as equally on a flat surface. I'll try just not using the parking brake one time and see what happens..

update on this? same issue here

Legend has it that the magnetic drain plug needed to be removed.