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Catastrophic Transmission Failure In A 2900km Stock Gt-r

GT-Ricer

By GT-Ricer,
in R35 GTR

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GT-Ricer

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My friend, who has only had his GT-R for less than 3 months and managed to do 2900km has just

experienced a catastrophic transmission failure. He's had his car taken on a flat bed truck back to Brookvale

and the verdict is a complete new tranny from Japan. Who knows how long this will take and then the boys

from Brookvale will have a baptism of fire getting "on the job" training, pulling the whole car apart for the very first time in Australia!

Luckily, his car is bone stock, with no VDC-OFF launches, so there were no arguments about factory warranty.

It would be a different story, I bet, if he had a COBB tune or any other mods installed.

This can happen to any one of us and Nissan Aus will use whatever means it has at it's disposal to void the warranty if the engine has been tampered with.

I wonder how many tranny failures they "budget for" out of 200 cars sold here so far?

I, for one, would give them back this almost new car and ask for another, one which is not broken....

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LSX-438 Mentor

LSX-438

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wow. amazing when you consider how much punishment some of us give our cars and nil issues, now we have someone who apparently babies their car and this.... strange.

so what is the nature of this "catastrophic" failure? and are they sure it actually is? if there is no local (nissan) expertise (in pulling the boxes arart) then perhaps it is a trivial issue, dirty soleniod or something, and they are just replacing the box because they don't know where to begin?

Martin Donnon Mentor

Martin Donnon

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so what is the nature of this "catastrophic" failure? and are they sure it actually is? if there is no local (nissan) expertise (in pulling the boxes arart) then perhaps it is a trivial issue, dirty soleniod or something, and they are just replacing the box because they don't know where to begin?

If the transmission hasnt been stripped down and inspected - which is outside of Nissan Australias expertise - then they will not have a clue as to the nature of the failure or whether it is catastrophic or not :P

GT-Ricer Collaborator

GT-Ricer

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wow. amazing when you consider how much punishment some of us give our cars and nil issues, now we have someone who apparently babies their car and this.... strange.

so what is the nature of this "catastrophic" failure? and are they sure it actually is? if there is no local (nissan) expertise (in pulling the boxes arart) then perhaps it is a trivial issue, dirty soleniod or something, and they are just replacing the box because they don't know where to begin?

It would not engage the first gear from neutral. Then it would make horrible crunching noises in other gears. They sent all the codes back to Japan and the verdict came back: wait for the new box!

Sounds like "remove the body from the scene ASAP" solution....As long as my mate's car gets fixed, that's all he cares about. I am a lot less foregiving.

This tranny had no right to fail in the first place. Not after 2900km on the street!

FrangaR33 Mentor

FrangaR33

Posted
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It would not engage the first gear from neutral. Then it would make horrible crunching noises in other gears. They sent all the codes back to Japan and the verdict came back: wait for the new box!

Sounds like "remove the body from the scene ASAP" solution....As long as my mate's car gets fixed, that's all he cares about. I am a lot less foregiving.

This tranny had no right to fail in the first place. Not after 2900km on the street!

I must agree, I mean shit your paying 160k+ for a car and a gearbox failing after what can only be conisidered a trip around the block that is dodgy, I hope he gets some sort of compo out of this for his inconvenience.

LSX-438 Mentor

LSX-438

Posted
Posted
It would not engage the first gear from neutral. Then it would make horrible crunching noises in other gears. They sent all the codes back to Japan and the verdict came back: wait for the new box!

Sounds like "remove the body from the scene ASAP" solution....As long as my mate's car gets fixed, that's all he cares about. I am a lot less foregiving.

This tranny had no right to fail in the first place. Not after 2900km on the street!

Hopefully it doesnt take too long to get fixed! it does sound strange.

fungoolie Community Regular

fungoolie

Posted
Posted

I once had a brand new MY04 Subaru STi spin a bearing at 1600 kms and Subaru replaced my car after inspecting the motor. All I paid was a nominal pro rata "depreciation" of about $300 as the car was a month old. I was very happy with the treatment they gave me. Mind you Subaru do not have crate motors and the only alternative would have been to repair it rather than replace the whole motor. If they could give me a whole new motor I also would have been happy with that. New trans shouldn't really warrant a new car. Sometimes infant mortality happens....

Birds Grand Master

Birds

Posted
Posted
I'd love to see the difference in posts in a thread like this about a HSV/FPV transmission failing after 3000kms of street driving...

If they were 160k supercars you might...

I'd be pissed too but nothing's perfect. As long as it is all backed by Nissan then they've done right by the customer.

GT-Ricer Collaborator

GT-Ricer

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If they were 160k supercars you might...

I'd be pissed too but nothing's perfect. As long as it is all backed by Nissan then they've done right by the customer.

We were told the tranny was hand built and matched exclusively to the specific hand built engine. Well, so much for that claim with the replacement ....

I would not want a car that has had such a major rebuild done so early in its life and and so far away from the factory.

No disrespect to the boys at Brookvale, because they do try to look after all of us pretty well,

but this is a major job and they have not done twenty before. For my friend's sake (who is pretty calm about all this)

I hope that Nissan Japan provides complete instructions not in Japanese....

Martin Donnon Mentor

Martin Donnon

Posted
Posted
We were told the tranny was hand built and matched exclusively to the specific hand built engine. Well, so much for that claim with the replacement ....

So much for that claim anyway....its not quite accurate.

In some instances when a transmission is replaced the TCM (Transmission Control Module) can be replaced, and it needs to be mated up to the ECM (Engine Control Module). Its a 'mating' routine they run on the Consult III...similar to when a transmission is replaced in a Holden, Ford, etc. No dark Supercar art required, just simple Plug and Play modern vehicle repair.

Pulling the transmission out isnt very hard, so the dealer shouldnt have too many issues, its around five hours work :geek:

GT-Ricer Collaborator

GT-Ricer

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So much for that claim anyway....its not quite accurate.

In some instances when a transmission is replaced the TCM (Transmission Control Module) can be replaced, and it needs to be mated up to the ECM (Engine Control Module). Its a 'mating' routine they run on the Consult III...similar to when a transmission is replaced in a Holden, Ford, etc. No dark Supercar art required, just simple Plug and Play modern vehicle repair.

Pulling the transmission out isnt very hard, so the dealer shouldnt have too many issues, its around five hours work :geek:

5 hours? I was quoted 12 hours labour only to replace the main seal on the E55 (tiny oil leak on the garage floor!), but that involves removing the tranny from the engine,

whereas the GT-R has a transaxle far away from the engine. I wonder which one is the more complicated set up to pull apart?

Either way, Nissan Japan wants the tranny back, so that they can have a quiet chat with the guy who built it... :P

Martin Donnon Mentor

Martin Donnon

Posted
Posted

Thankfully the E55 wasnt a GTR last time I looked! :geek:

What seems to have happened to your friends car providing the mechanical crunching etc. is correct would be that its lost the main clip holding the front wheel drive output in position. When this clip falls off - and its fairly underengineered so it can indeed happen anytime without hard driving - this is the resulting carnage that occurs as the transfer gear walks forwards -

3950855767_bf30b58e78_b.jpg

We make a repair part that replaces the weak factory spring clip with a properly designed four piece competition clip that is locked into position and can take thrust in both directions. We have installed these parts (WR35CC) in a handful of Australian GTRs that want peace of mind, as well as fixing this poor guys problem in the US :P

GT-Ricer Collaborator

GT-Ricer

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This is the little spring clip that comes adrift in the right of picture. When this happens the transmission turns into a timebomb. Its not a matter of 'if' but 'when' ;)

3951047755_3cfc609337_b.jpg

Let me guess...you have a DIY remedy already developed, ready to ship? :bunny:

Martin Donnon Mentor

Martin Donnon

Posted
Posted (edited)

We developed the transmission fix for this problem over 6 months ago ;)

There are a couple of members on this board (three actually now I think about it) that have these (as well as many other) updated GR6 repair parts put through their transmissions before they experienced any failure. One of them was a brand new Australian delivered GTR with less than 200km on the clock. He wanted to avoid the chance of failure from day one, hence we removed and strengthened his transmission :bunny:

Edited by Martin Donnon
GT-Ricer Collaborator

GT-Ricer

Posted
  • Author
Posted
We developed the transmission fix for this problem over 6 months ago ;)

There are a couple of members on this board (three actually now I think about it) that have these (as well as many other) updated GR6 repair parts put through their transmissions before they experienced any failure. One of them was a brand new Australian delivered GTR with less than 200km on the clock. He wanted to avoid the chance of failure from day one, hence we removed and strengthened his transmission :bunny:

It's all very nice, but the only problem with that is that if the "strengthened" transmission has any other issues with it, no matter how trivial, Nissan Aust/Nissan Jap will not send you a thank you note for fixing what wasn't broken (yet), but will void these guys' warranties for unauthorised work on their trannys.

So, legally, it is better to let the thing break first and have it replaced under warranty, than to modify it to prevent it from breaking in the first place...

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