Good morning folks. I’m Saul Reisman here at Saul’s Autotek. And today, we’re going to talk a little bit more about Nissan CVT or constantly variable transmission failures, how we can prevent them, how we can help you, and what to do if you’re stuck driving one of these vehicles.
Now, first and foremost, we encourage you to find a replacement vehicle and I stand by my words, because these vehicles are subject to a class action lawsuit, and we want you in the most reliable vehicle on the road. Period. However, if you’re an owner of one of these vehicles, you’re having a bad situation, maybe your transmission has failed, you need to watch this video because this pertains to you directly. If you’ve been looking at getting a replacement in your Nissan to get that CVT replaced, if you went to the dealership, they told you that the price of the transmission isn’t that expensive. Approximately $1,600 for the actual mechanical componentry, down from approximately 2,800 just a year or two ago. Nissan is taking the liberty of dropping the prices on that product in an attempt to avoid a lawsuit, as many, many owners are now realizing the frequency and recidivism of these transmissions and are trying to find a solution.
If you get yours installed at the dealership, they’re gonna offer you a 12 month, 12,000-mile parts and labor warranty. If you get that transmission installed anywhere else and they purchased that part from the dealership brand new the dealership is going to refuse to honor the labor warranty, as they weren’t paid to do the labor of the install. Meaning if you went to an independent transmission shop because you got told it would be five thousand, six thousand dollars at the dealership and you went to an independent and paid three or $4,000 and you think you got a great deal, you did. However, the vehicle itself, that transmission only as a 12 month, 12,000-mile parts only warranty to replace most CVTs in the Nissan vehicles approximately a 14-hour job or over $1,500 in labor. So that $1,600 part, you’re going to pay almost that in labor to replace it again, not if but when it fails. I say when because I bought two new units from the dealership right here from Tienen’s Nissan on Havana in South Denver. Both failed within 15,000 miles. I think Nissan’s product is garbage. I’m never going to install another one.
As a result, I’m standing here in front of the transmission bench where Fred Morgan, our in house transmission builder with 37 years field experience, builds these right here on the bench. Now the reason CVTs fail is because of an internal variator and cone design. If you’ve ever been to a renaissance festival and you see a gentleman holding two sticks with a string between them and using a figure eight or hourglass type device to roll between them back and forth, play tricks, pull the strings, launch it in the air, catch it, flip it, twist it, that’s literally what’s going on inside your CVT transmission in your Nissan vehicle. There are two variators or cone-shaped figure eight type devices, one that sits on either end of the transmission so that a belt that runs between them can effectively create different gear ratios by increasing or decreasing the size of the actual diameter of those rods at either end. Low RPM makes one big, makes one small, and makes a lot of torque. High RPM, high end, freeway speeds, makes one small, makes one big. Get a lot of high speed, not a lot of torque. Instead of giving you independent gears, it gives you a bias across the board. The reality is these fail, they overheat, the bands wear out, the variators get destroyed, the cones are junk and the pumps inside them don’t lubricate properly.
If you look at a rebuilder, many aftermarket rebuilders won’t even touch them. If you call Certified Transmission or Jasper Transmission and you say, “I need a Nissan CVT,” they say, “Whoa, we don’t touch that. We don’t play that game. But here it Saul’s Autotek, we’ve got your back, and we’re going to give you a real warranty. One thing that Autotek takes pride in is a three-year part and labor warranty on everything we service. So when Nissan, who built your car, told us that they’ll only honor it for 12 months or 12,000 miles, we threw ’em out the window. We’re not putting their units in. We’re building them here in house with a three year, 100,000-mile parts and labor guarantee.
If you’ve got a concern about your CVT, and you want to make sure it lasts as long as possible or you’ve already had a failure or maybe multiple failures and you’re looking for the best solution, not a bandaid, Saul’s Autotek is your automotive solution. We can build your transmission in house, whether a CVT or any other model. And if you need to guarantee that it’s going to work right, we’re going to stand behind it for three years, 100,000 miles parts and labor nationwide coast to coast coverage. We can do that because we have a professional builder that physically disassembles finds the componentry that had failed and installs upgraded, designed componentry in house for us. We partnered with independent machinists that are on our staff to produce the parts to make the best product available on the market.
We can stand behind our CVT, and we can say it’s the best thing that will shift your gears. If you’ve got problems with yours, come and see us. We’d love to show you what they actually work like inside, how to best get them prepared for the future. And if you’ve got a problem with yours, we can give you a guaranteed solution that’ll last you years down the road. No more, 12 months, 12,000 miles.
If you want peace of mind, it’s available at Saul’s Autotek 365 days a year here at seven nine three nine east Arapaho Road in Greenwood Village. 303-290-9900. Here to keep you shifting.
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