CVT fluid change
 

My other car is a 2015 Nissan Altima. I'm fast approaching 60K and wondering should I change the trans fluid? How long can I go? If I have the dealer do it I will bring/buy my own fluid. Any thoughts?

What does the owner's manual or Chilton's say?

Completely different car but when I searched the internet for CVT fluid change on my 2015 Versa Note (Take this with a grain of salt because it came off the internet)
There is no drain plug (on the Versa) thus they have to add a fitting to drain the fluid.
It needs to be Nissan trans fluid.
Some say you have to run the engine while changing the fluid.
The dealer quoted me $220 so I am probably going to do that (but you know they will find other things wrong once they get under the car) :rolleyes:

Maybe check youtube for 2015 Nissan Altima CVT fluid change?

I'm a rabid do it your self-er but in this case I say have the dealer do the whole thing.

Reason 1: Unless you have the special filler nipple it's a PITA to get the right amount of fluid in, and the volume is important.

Reason 2: WHEN (not if) that transmission fails, and they recall that POS transmission and they double the warrantee period (because 85,000 of them failed), they can't deny your claim because you didn't do it exactly by the book.

Edit:

Reason 3: I think they also have a service bulletin on that POS transmission where they reset the shift points so the 100% failure rate is pushed out long enough for you to dump the car.

We have a 2012 Nissan Quest with the CVT, but it still has a drain plug and dipstick. In my case at about 60k I simply drained all that would drain, measured out the amount of fluid, and refilled with OEM fluid. Easy. No idea if it helped, but at 90k the thing still runs great.

My Prius says 60K for the fluid. Dealer did first service, sucked out the old fluid. Added special Toyota fluid, was exactly two quarts as I remember. I did the rest at the local independent. Car has 240K on it. Flawless CVT function. YMMV.

Thanks for the input guys.... The owners manual says 60K. Seems all the DIY'ers I've seen leave some old fluid in the case, so dealer it is. I will try and purchase my own fluid and watch while they work.

I would not expect a dealer to accept doing that job using fluid you supply them.

Kind of like taking eggs to a diner and asking the cook to cook them for you.

ymmV.

I did what Matt did on my wife's 2012 Altima Coupe 3.5L. I forget the specifics, but if I remember correctly, it would only drain about half the fluid (no way am I running the engine while draining the ATF). I drained the fluid, measured it, & replaced it with an equal amount of Nissan ATF. Then the following weekend I did the same again, which resulted in replacing most of the fluid. You have to use their ATF or you void the warrantee. I bought mine on Amazon. The dealership (& maybe independents) can analyze the fluid to determine how much service is left in it, but the dealership only changes half of the fluid, as I understand it. I won't take my wife's car to the local stealership. They wanted $100 just to check the tire pressure monitors when we had trouble with one of them.

Also, if you don't have the drain plug, you can just use a Motive power extractor tool. It's incredibly useful for a variety of garage tasks.

I had a Murano and the special Nissan CVT fluid was Chevron gear oil. Didn't even change the packaging.

My daughter is driving my wife's old murano, has to have 160k on it by now. We've followed the factory service recommendations and never had any trouble.

My daughter's 2009 sentra was a different story.
Bought it with 35k miles on it, replaced the CVT transmission twice in 3 years.
POS.

Hmmm, I better do the trans fluid on my 06 Murano and I'm hitting 70k shortly. Drain and fill or flush and fill?

I have a Subaru outback that will need a cvt fluid change sooner that I would like, but I am curious about how to refill the fluid. it has both a drain and fill port but the service manual talks about fluid temp. apparently the fluid needs to be at operating temp for the level to be correct.

ok. how much does that fluid(the special Subaru magic oil) expand with temp? I would not think it would be much. 1/10qt, 1/100qt?

If you carefully measure what you drain, then refill the same amount, it should be fine.

I did the fluid and filter on my C63, which was also temperature dependent. I used an IR thermometer on the metal pan which seemed to be close enough. Some high end OBD readers will also output live data like transmission temperature that you can use for level checks.

simple yet brilliant.

I did the fluid on my 2011 outback a couple of years ago.
Was at 60k, and noticed a difference in smoothness after the change.
I used a redline product (there is a particular type that they recommend for the Subaru cat).
I did remove the pan to get as much out as possible.
It worked out to something like 6qts.
I bought 12 - so I'm all set for the next time.
Have gone about 28k since then. Still smooth.

Don't forget to do differential at the same time.

*note - there is a pretty good forum out there for Subaru
SubaruOutback.org
I think that was where I found the info.
Very difficult and expensive to source and ship the OEM fluid. That was my reasoning for going with redline.

That forum isn't a "pelican" by any means - but you take what you can get.