Us Transmission Failures?

[ras1983]

No GTR's box has been unbreakable? Why all of a sudden are people crying? Nothing is bullet proof, and remember this gearbox is holding up to alot more torque and power then any of the previous GTR's.

The main point isn't that the gearbox is breaking, it's that Nissan isn't covering repairs under quite a few instances now when it seems that there may be a manufacturing fault meaning Nissan may be partially if not overwhelmingly at fault.

[sh@un]

manufacturing fault my ass

it's a simple matter of people abusing launch control- how often would you bother to do brutal standing starts with a normal manual gearbox on the street? rarely ever

[ras1983]

Do we know how those cars were driven? Do we know how many times L/C was used? Do we know how many times Nissan believes L/C can be used before voiding the warranty?

No we don't, so we're all jumping to conclusions without knowing all of the facts. The fact of the matter is that this is still a brand new model and nearly all new models have quality issues and problems. This means that there may very well be certain issues that are yet to be worked out at the production level including issues with the gearbox. For all we know those particular gearboxes may have just been a small batch of duds.

So lets not jump to any conclusions and instantly start defending Nissan and the GTR when it might actually have some defective parts. The question is why isn't Nissan fixing the gearboxes under the warranty?

[Angus Smart]

It is at the end of the day one of the first very affordable supercars. with all the japanese features a car could ever want

so its going to obviously encourage a younger market to buy. it would be intertesting to get stats on the average age of a Nissan Gtr buyer, tho obviously not really to blame but when your younger you tend to push things a little more than the normal.

they have the black box inside the car to see whats been going on. i'm sure it will all come out soon and the truth will be there.

[Marlin]

Must say I can't agree with the people whom are saying that a supercar should be able to cop a constant hammering. Hard driving yes, but not sustained abuse, which in my opinion constant use of LC is! If LC wasn't so accessable and easy for even a pathetic driver to use, it wouldn't be used as much. If the 35 didn't have such a fancy gearbox with the LC feature, how many people would abuse it with big rpm clutch dumps with a traditional 6 speed manual? Nowhere near as many.

Heck, a Lambo Gallardo needs it's front diff replaced after 20, yes 20 launches! Cost? EIGHTEEN GRAND! Not to mention the standard clutch which is only good for three!

[Kujotk]

as far as i know i thought warrantee was voided if speed limiter was lifted, black box shows constant abuse (can take it to a track but they said law of common sense prevails), and it was either no LC was to be used in the american warrantee or it was limmited to 3 LC's untill warrante is voidedd ( i think the 3 LC launches is going to be the Australian warante aswell)

[Beer Baron]

Suddenly the claims of porsche having trouble getting out of third with the gtr has merit. If u paid this much money for a car then u should be able to drive it like u stole it when u want to.They obviously made it with the weak gearbox. Nissan need to Fix the problem and look after u r clientel b 4 they send the GTR name into the toilet.

Supercar my ass!!!!!!I have become a fan of skylines in the last year or so but reading this is garbage.

As a supercar it should be able to take a licking and keep on ticking. I would be loading up with ammo and going to my dealership if they gave me this answer.

Hopefully they have the problem fixed b 4 u aussies get a hold of one. They should have disabled the ability of the LC from factory if it would void the warranty. its like getting the atomic bomb but being told that u have voided the warranty after u pressed the redbutton. BS to the max.

lol, there is no claim that porsche couldn't get out of 3rd gear. that was a joke....

and there is no massive gearbox failure. I only know of one. and it was not in the US, the bloke is somewhere in europe (he just posted it on the US site) that is why he's got no help as the GTR is not sold by nissan in his country.. I have seen a fair few R35s cop a fair bit of punishment with a fair bit of power too and not seen any failure of any kind. this particular bloke was a launch control fiend and launched his GTR into gearbox failure mode and has now launched himself into wallet emptying mode.

[Roy]

the thing is, doing these launch-controlled starts is so much harder on the transmission than any race track driving will expose it to (super high oil temps not withstanding).

just think about the physics here- it's a 1740kg car, with wiiiiide&grippy tyres (140 treadwear rating from the factory), a super-fast response AWD system that almost instantly goes to 50:50 torque split, and an engine that makes at least 580Nm of torque at launch revs. doesn't take a real braniac to see where this is heading...

i think the problem is thus: thinking back to high-school engineering science, metals have whats called 'plastic' and 'elastic' strain limits. the 'elastic' limit is how har it can deform and return to the original shape (think of flexing a metal ruler gently), whereas the 'plastic' limit is how far the object can be deformed before it fails catastrophically; though it won't return to the original shape after the 'elastic' limit threshold is exceeded (again, think bending a ruler until a permanent crease forms)

what i think is happening with these R35's that have had gearbox failures, is that the owners that spend all day smoking everyones arse off at the traffic-light GP are taking certain teeth on the 1st gear gogs up to and past the elastic limit with every launch. eventually most, if not all, the teeth on 1st become deformed past the elastic limit, and the next time the car is launched with the cogs in the fatally weakend spot, it just lets go.

that's my theory anyway- if it wasn't the case, it'd just die the very first time you tried it.

and looking at the shots of the busted box, they really aren't small gear faces, either...

I think the thing to remember is that gears are case hardened etc . So the elastic region isnt the main concern, its the shear strength of the gear that is causing failures

How complex is the computer controlling the gearbox. Surely there is a torque limiting component to the software that can be used for fractions of a second on gearchanges to ensure that gearboxes hang in there when power goes through the roof and ORC etc start developing clutches for competition etc

[LSX-438]

The problem as i see it: the USA guys are saying a) you can't easily (if at all) upgrade or replace clutch components separately and b) the whole box assembly costs something like $18kUS installed (which they are saying is the only option in case of even a "simple" clutch failure or being worn out). Surely they will wear out eventually, ignoring the assumption these guys in the USA are seriously abusing their cars, surely, as with all cars, things wear out eventually.

Can anyone tell me how i could go about finding the replacement cost of this box for aussie people? Or even what the box would cost if i were to buy one in Japan? Or if anyone locally has pulled one of these boxes apart? Worst case scenario, extrapolating the US GTR price with the aussie dollar, a replacement box could be something like $30~$40k? Even $20k would be ridiculous. Shit even $10k for a clutch replacement would be stupid. An Evo ralliart box is less than $5k right? I understand these are somewhat new/tricky boxes, but this could be a deal clincher for a lot of people. I am not paying $20k to fix a stuffed clutch.

Summary: i am happy to forgo warranty for the track; i expect things to break; but replacement cost is a factor

Edited October 9, 2008 by LSX-438

[iplen]

First of all:

I do not own a GTR and have not seen an R35

I do not pretend to be the master of engineering

But

I have had fair bit of experience abusing (rallying) and maintaining several different cars (including a Subaru with reportedly the worlds weakest gearbox)

I would buy an R35 long before I could convince myself I could afford it, and have ridden in a couple of fairly quick R32's (enough to know that I am buying one) and owned a Stagea

Now for my highly Educated opinion based on the above.

You can buy a car with Ferrari (etc) performance for a tiny price, Nissan knew it was going to be a model they would lose money on, and it was always designed to come in at the price they have achieved. You get what you pay for people!

How many other true supercars get this sort punishment, seriously when did you last see a Ferrari go past 1/3 rev range? (yes I know they get raced, but the people racing them I am betting do pretty regular maintenance)

This price means that people buying these cars are not millionaires who need something to drive to Starbucks in, and it also means that Nissan do not have the margin to be throwing gearboxes in under warranty all the time.

Nothing is ever free, if a Ferrari gearbox let go in this time of course Ferrari are going to throw one in, hell you paid for at least three extra gearboxes when you bought the car

Last of all, Why have these problems not come about in Japan? sure there was 1 tuner said they had some gearbox trouble, but that was it..

[VB-]

Last of all, Why have these problems not come about in Japan? sure there was 1 tuner said they had some gearbox trouble, but that was it..

i was just about to mention this. i'm lead to believe the US got a different box to the jdm one, i think its only electronic but does anyone actually know what the differences are?

[Marlin]

With any luck the yanks will have a horrible run with their 35's and Nissan will get the shits and withdraw them from sale there which of course means more allocated to us!

[fatz]

ive had the same problem with rb20 det gear boxes

f**kers dont like 500hp

suck the balls gtr

[sh@un]

you really should use the clutch going up through the gears Pete... or at least lift the throttle a tiny bit

[MFC05]

LOL @ all the GTR Fan Boys, it doesnt matter how hard it was driven & launch was people are forgetting the fact that the R35 GTR was practically brand new car with less than 5000kms !! and then it breaks ?!?!? It just shows why it is half of price of Porsche's GT3 cause Nissan would of appiled cheaper parts on the car hence why we are begining to see weak transmission problems.

[-Dukes-]

Lol, It like when I told my mechanic (used to work for nissan) about my gearbox making noises it's stiff shifting... he just says "yeah, I wouldn't worry about it. I've never driven a skyline that didn't have something wrong with it's gear box"

It's like holdens and clutches, if you up the power on a commodore you'll f**k your clutch first launch you do...

But really, factory parts should withstand factory specifications... Mabey they should be de-tuned for americans?

[GTRsean]

UUUmmm....Never buy a series 1....lol.

Let em iron out all the bugs then go from there...

[Adriano]

It would be interesting to do a gearbox destruction test, line up a whole lot of "supercars" and launch them 30 times on a grippy track. Im willing to bet most of them would sustain some damage in one way or another.

[saliya]

I don't think any reasonable person expects to be able to wind up the motor's torque (e.g. by adding boost)

without any effects on the rest of the drivetrain. That's not what's happening here -

the stock motor, when used with launch control, is apparently destroying gearboxes.

Further, Nissan US is apparently making their customers sign a piece of paper saying "if I deactivate VDC I accept that the warranty is void"

and VDC deactivation is required for launch control.

It's a bit rich of Nissan to add a feature and a button which, when used, voids the warranty in the US.

I don't know whether they'd be able to get away with that here. If the feature is used to obtain the claimed

0-100km/h and 0-400m times I'm not sure how that would stack up against our Trade Practices Act

(because then the car, as supplied, cannot do what is claimed; to be able to get the claimed performance you must use the feature).

They should either remove the feature from factory and change the claimed performance figures (then if someone else adds it back in it's not their problem)

or man up and warrant the gearbox to cope with use of the supplied feature.

Regards,

Saliya

Edited October 11, 2008 by saliya

[dan_the_man]

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a gearbox where the only thing controlling it is my left hand...

old fashioned

they have left hand drive cars too