Jump to content
SAU Community

Catastrophic Transmission Failure In A 2900km Stock Gt-r


Recommended Posts

Wow that sucks to hear about your friends car. Fortunately its under warranty which is great news.

I had a Transmission failure on my R35 at the start of the year. It was a JDM and had some silly clutch seal pop at 6000km's that made the transmission slip gears.

Fortunately the experts Martin & the boys at Willall Racing fixed it better than new within 6-8 weeks. The new Willall oil's are alot smoother in the tranmission & diff too. The car drivers better than new now. Plus Martin was nice enough to upgrade a few other parts inside that were vulnerable to weaknesses. (thanks again for that Martin) ;-)

Unfortunately no warranty for me as it was a JDM but it was a very professional repair job and your friend won't have any issues with Nissan pulling out & putting in his new Transmission, my local garage took out my transmission to ship it to Adelaide so I'm sure they won't have any issues putting in a brand new box and hitting go on the consult 3.

  • Replies 50
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

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.

They're not $160k supercars, which means they have more right to failure.

The point was that people wouldn't be so forgiving with posts like 'As long as they fix it it's fine' etc, if it was a Ford/Holden. The posts would be more along the lines of slamming ford and holden for their poor quality.

They're not $160k supercars, which means they have more right to failure.

The point was that people wouldn't be so forgiving with posts like 'As long as they fix it it's fine' etc, if it was a Ford/Holden. The posts would be more along the lines of slamming ford and holden for their poor quality.

Oh ok sorry, I didn't see where you were coming from before. I'm of much the same opinion...but there are tons of ignorant folk who wouldn't see the volume of production or price vs. number of quality control issues argument anyway. In the end it's a Nissan forum and we'd probably find the reverse effect on a Holden/Ford forum.

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...

yup i was thinking the exact same thing..... a $160k super car shouldn't really need any upgrades so soon, even if it was driven soft or hard (launch control is a different issue), i'm looking into the R35 in the next couple of months and i'd sure as hell expect the issue to be fixed under warantee if it ever arose.

And if these guys are replacing parts on their ADM R35's and still expecting to get the same after sales support and free replacement of broken parts, then they have another thing comming, we all know the R35 trnsmission has already had a few issues, whos to say no other gremlins will come out from hiding in the future...

GT-Ricer my condolences to your friend. Id be mighty pissed off, but also relieved the problem will be rectified.

Certainly i would imagine all of us with these cars who havent had any issues would be getting pretty nervous about the possibility of failure.

Mines only just done over 3000 ks so i can definately see how frustrating and annoying that would be.

In saying that as a general rule, cars that are going to have problems generally do earlier rather than later.

I wonder if anyone knows in real numbers how common this is.

Certainly the transmission failure in the us seemed to be blown out of proportion and from what i could tell was largely related to excessive LC on the series I.

The other thing im thinking is if this is a Martin says, a matter of time when it fails, then should't sorry let me rephrase that, doesnt Nissan have a responsibility to recall all GTR's to correct a design flaw?

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...

But it sounds like a great preventive step for the JDM cars now in Aus...

Didn't think about the other side of that, i.e. any transmission problems are probably a blessing in disguise for Nissan Australia given the new car warranty is serving a purposeful advantage over the JDM models.

Didn't think about the other side of that, i.e. any transmission problems are probably a blessing in disguise for Nissan Australia given the new car warranty is serving a purposeful advantage over the JDM models.

Yeah i can see where you guys are coming from but i would have thought if this was a recall issue it'll be coming from nissan japan. Id like to think that nissan gives a shit about their reputation globally, especially regarding their golden child.

I guess time will tell.

They do care about their global reputation...but R35 GTR is a flagship vehicle; a marketing exercise more than a money maker for the manufacturer. It is Nissan's best engineering within the constraints of an affordable and road legal public offering. So to acknowledge and put out a recall on any part of this car is probably in their eyes more damaging to their engineering reputation...particularly as the transmission problems have had very sporadic appearance in terms of actual production numbers affected by it. Not to mention the costs involved in a recall. Were it a more widespread problem the balance would be in favour of a recall and shooting for the "look what we're doing, we stand behind our warranty" angle but right now they appear to be playing the same waiting game that most R35 owners are; replacing things here and there as they pop up instead of making it official.

It all comes down to image, Nissan will look like idiots recalling this model of their range, this is surposed to be their top of the range model. It is much better to keep things like this low key, and lets face it this issue isn't really going to make headlines unless someone is unlucky enough to die because of it failing (chances are pretty remote) so they will just replace it as they come across it.

you guys do make some valid points. Time will tell how extensive the problem is.

True my friend, time reveals all...hopefully for you and Nissan it is just the sporadic production issue it appears to be.

Bit late on this one but seems to be a manufacturing fault or faulty part(s), rather than intrinsic design fault. With just about every car you are bound get a story like this. As long as the faulty part/component is replaced by the manufacturer, this is most important.

I remember a demonstrator Toyota Avalon at the Toyota dealer I worked at having an engine failure at about 3,000kms. It was the fleet managers car, an older fellow who drove the car very sedately, just a freak occurance. Generally speaking IMZ-FE is a very reliable engine.

Obviously being a GT-R with such high profile, these things tend to be a big deal. Anecdotely I've heard a few stories of Ferrari's, Maserati's, BMW's, Mercs, Alfa's etc having catestrophic component failure (engine/tranny)- for no apparent reason. Not typical, but does happen.

engines and transmitions these days somehow love breaking down for no reason eventhough we thought they were meant to be more reliable due to technology advancements<-guess not. more computers normally mean more troubles linking from the faulty component to the other and another.

You said it in a nutshell; the more complicated something is the higher the chances of things turning to shit and also the harder it is to resolve an issue when something comes about.

don't think the price of the car really has much, if any connection, with it's reliability... hello ferrari reputation?

case in point, currrent gen M5... guarantee you has had MANY more gearbox failures over the same period as the GTR (ie, first 2-3 years of product life) and this car is what... $180-200K? notorious for gearbox problems... not to mention the $1k sparkplugs :rofl:

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....

All qualified GTR techs have removed engines and gearbox as part of their training so I'm sure they'll manage :rofl: , at the end of the day it's still a car held together with nuts and bolts.

I love this whole engine and gearbox being life long mating partners thing, do you think they put them all out in a paddock and just wait to see which gearbox shoves it's shaft in the back of which motor??? Serioulsy they all have the same ratios etc, and if there is that much variation in the build process that they need to to be mated up there is a problem...

Hypothesis begins:

Nissan are aware of potential problems with gearboxes (How could they not be?) so during development they go "hey if there was a pissy little fuse in the gearbox, that were you an upgrading kind of person you would swap for something stronger, would that be a really good way of ensuring we don't cop warranty claims for cars that have been played with?"..... Just putting it out there, Surely if you had a tune and your car was going in for a warranty gearbox you would be resetting back to stock, but you are not going to be able to pull the gearbox apart and remove said clip before Nissan pulls the box apart.....

don't think the price of the car really has much, if any connection, with it's reliability... hello ferrari reputation?

case in point, currrent gen M5... guarantee you has had MANY more gearbox failures over the same period as the GTR (ie, first 2-3 years of product life) and this car is what... $180-200K? notorious for gearbox problems... not to mention the $1k sparkplugs :P

ya but we are talking about nissan, not ferrari.... the people who buy nissans are more likely to want reliability out of their cars more so than the ferrari guys.... I know what your getting at but nissans are generally pretty good and one would expect them (especially one of their top of the line models) to be reliable, thats all...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Well, that's kinda the point. The calipers might interfere with the inside of the barrels 16" rims are only about 14" inside the barrels, which is ~350mm, and 334mm rotors only leave about 8mm outboard for the caliper before you get to 350, And.... that;s not gunna be enough. If the rims have a larger ID than that, you might sneak it in. I'd be putting a measuring stick inside the wheel and eyeballing the extra required for the caliper outboard of the rotor before committing to bolting it all on.
    • OK, so again it has been a bit of a break but it was around researching what had been done since I didn't have access to Neil's records and not everything is obvious without pulling stuff apart. Happily the guy who assembled the engine had kept reasonable records, so we now know the final spec is: Bottom end: Standard block and crank Ross 86.5mm forgies, 9:1 compression Spool forged rods Standard main bolts Oil pump Spool billet gears in standard housing Aeroflow extended and baffled sump Head Freshly rebuilt standard head with new 80lb valve springs Mild porting/port match Head oil feed restrictor VCT disabled Tighe 805C reground cams (255 duration, 8.93 lift)  Adjustable cam gears on inlet/exhaust Standard head bolts, gasket not confirmed but assumed MLS External 555cc Nismo injectors Z32 AFM Bosch 023 Intank fuel pump Garret 2871 (factory housings and manifold) Hypertune FFP plenum with standard throttle   Time to book in a trip to Unigroup
    • I forgot about my shiny new plates!
    • Well, apparently they do fit, however this wont be a problem if not because the car will be stationary while i do the suspension work. I was just going to use the 16's to roll the old girl around if I needed to. I just need to get the E90 back on the road first. Yes! I'm a believer! 🙌 So, I contacted them because the site kinda sucks and I was really confused about what I'd need. They put together a package for me and because I was spraying all the seat surfaces and not doing spot fixes I decided not to send them a headrest to colour match, I just used their colour on file (and it was spot on).  I got some heavy duty cleaner, 1L of colour, a small bottle of dye hardener and a small bottle of the dye top coat. I also got a spray gun as I needed a larger nozzle than the gun I had and it was only $40 extra. From memory the total was ~$450 ish. Its not cheap but the result is awesome. They did add repair bits and pieces to the quote originally and the cost came down significantly when I said I didn't need any repair products. I did it over a weekend. The only issues I had were my own; I forgot to mix the hardener into the dye two coats but I had enough dye for 2 more coats with the hardener. I also just used up all the dye because why not and i rushed the last coat which gave me some runs. Thankfully the runs are under the headrests. The gun pattern wasn't great, very round and would have been better if it was a line. It made it a little tricky to get consistent coverage and I think having done the extra coats probably helped conceal any coverage issues. I contacted them again a few months later so I could get our X5 done (who the f**k thought white leather was a good idea for a family car?!) and they said they had some training to do in Sydney and I could get a reduced rate on the leather fix in the X5 if I let them demo their product on our car. So I agreed. When I took Bec in the E39 to pick it up, I showed them the job I'd done in my car and they were all (students included) really impressed. Note that they said the runs I created could be fixed easily at the time with a brush or an air compressor gun. So, now with the two cars done I can absolutely recommend Colourlock.  I'll take pics of both interiors and create a new thread.
    • Power is fed to the ECU when the ignition switch is switched to IGN, at terminal 58. That same wire also connects to the ECCS relay to provide both the coil power and the contact side. When the ECU sees power at 58 it switches 16 to earth, which pulls the ECCS relay on, which feeds main power into the ECU and also to a bunch of other things. None of this is directly involved in the fuel pump - it just has to happen first. The ECU will pull terminal 18 to earth when it wants the fuel pump to run. This allows the fuel pump relay to pull in, which switches power on into the rest of the fuel pump control equipment. The fuel pump control regulator is controlled from terminal 104 on the ECU and is switched high or low depending on whether the ECU thinks the pump needs to run high or low. (I don't know which way around that is, and it really doesn't matter right now). The fuel pump control reg is really just a resistor that controls how the power through the pump goes to earth. Either straight to earth, or via the resistor. This part doesn't matter much to us today. The power to the fuel pump relay comes from one of the switched wires from the IGN switch and fusebox that is not shown off to the left of this page. That power runs the fuel pump relay coil and a number of other engine peripherals. Those peripherals don't really matter. All that matters is that there should be power available at the relay when the key is in the right position. At least - I think it's switched. If it's not switched, then power will be there all the time. Either way, if you don't have power there when you need it (ie, key on) then it won't work. The input-output switching side of the relay gains its power from a line similar (but not the same as) the one that feeds the ECU. SO I presume that is switched. Again, if there is not power there when you need it, then you have to look upstream. And... the upshot of all that? There is no "ground" at the fuel pump relay. Where you say: and say that pin 1 Black/Pink is ground, that is not true. The ECU trigger is AF73, is black/pink, and is the "ground". When the ECU says it is. The Blue/White wire is the "constant" 12V to power the relay's coil. And when I say "constant", I mean it may well only be on when the key is on. As I said above. So, when the ECU says not to be running the pump (which is any time after about 3s of switching on, with no crank signal or engine speed yet), then you should see 12V at both 1 and 2. Because the 12V will be all the way up to the ECU terminal 18, waiting to be switched to ground. When the ECU switches the fuel pump on, then AF73 should go to ~0V, having been switched to ground and the voltage drop now occurring over the relay coil. 3 & 5 are easy. 5 is the other "constant" 12V, that may or may not be constant but will very much want to be there when the key is on. Same as above. 3 goes to the pump. There should never be 12V visible at 3 unless the relay is pulled in. As to where the immobiliser might have been spliced into all this.... It will either have to be on wire AF70 or AF71, whichever is most accessible near the alarm. Given that all those wires run from the engine bay fusebox or the ECU, via the driver's area to the rear of the car, it could really be either. AF70 will be the same colour from the appropriate fuse all the way to the pump. If it has been cut and is dangling, you should be able to see that  in that area somewhere. Same with AF71.   You really should be able to force the pump to run. Just jump 12V onto AF72 and it should go. That will prove that the pump itself is willing to go along with you when you sort out the upstream. You really should be able to force the fuel pump relay on. Just short AF73 to earth when the key is on. If the pump runs, then the relay is fine, and all the power up to both inputs on the relay is fine. If it doesn't run (and given that you checked the relay itself actually works) then one or both of AF70 and AF71 are not bringing power to the game.
×
×
  • Create New...