Hi,
My mom's Nissan Versa 2014 only has about 5,000 miles on it, so she drives less than 1,000 miles per year all short trips. There are currently no issues. The Nissan manual have schedule for low miles car as an oil change every 6 months, brake fluid every 2 years, and coolant every 7 years. There is however nothing on transmission fluid other than have the dealer run something call Consult to determine the fluid deterioration rate is lower than 210000. There is no dipstick for the fluid so I can't check what color it is.
The problem is that when I contacted the dealer, they seems not to know what deterioration rate means and suggest that it should be changed since it's over 5 years. I am not sure how much to trust the dealer (or most dealer in general). I did tried to call Nissan USA but they just defer to their local dealer. Changing CVT fluid is not cheap and even on a severe schedule, the service schedule is every 30,000 miles (normal is 60,000 miles). At this rate, it would take several decades to reach.
What are your expert's opinion on this? From my point of view
For:
* CVT is not like motor oil. it's not expose to constant heat and combustion. There shouldn't be stuff like carbon build up.
* Transmission fluid deteriorate due to heat. Short driving distance means the transmission never heated up.
Against
* The fluid is factory original and may contains break-in metal bits?
* Fluid may still break down over time, it's been like 6 years.
The dealer being dealt with has since closed. I am thinking of trying again with another dealer in her area.
* Anyone know anything about this Nissan Consult III that they refer to in the manual or how much it would cost to have them run it?
* There appears to be an application call CVTZ50 that connects to a ELM327 OBD2 dongle to read the value. Anyone have experience with the app?
* How reliable is this deterioration rate? I think it's suppose to be calculated based on temperature rather than actual fluid state.
Paul
My mom's Nissan Versa 2014 only has about 5,000 miles on it, so she drives less than 1,000 miles per year all short trips. There are currently no issues. The Nissan manual have schedule for low miles car as an oil change every 6 months, brake fluid every 2 years, and coolant every 7 years. There is however nothing on transmission fluid other than have the dealer run something call Consult to determine the fluid deterioration rate is lower than 210000. There is no dipstick for the fluid so I can't check what color it is.
The problem is that when I contacted the dealer, they seems not to know what deterioration rate means and suggest that it should be changed since it's over 5 years. I am not sure how much to trust the dealer (or most dealer in general). I did tried to call Nissan USA but they just defer to their local dealer. Changing CVT fluid is not cheap and even on a severe schedule, the service schedule is every 30,000 miles (normal is 60,000 miles). At this rate, it would take several decades to reach.
What are your expert's opinion on this? From my point of view
For:
* CVT is not like motor oil. it's not expose to constant heat and combustion. There shouldn't be stuff like carbon build up.
* Transmission fluid deteriorate due to heat. Short driving distance means the transmission never heated up.
Against
* The fluid is factory original and may contains break-in metal bits?
* Fluid may still break down over time, it's been like 6 years.
The dealer being dealt with has since closed. I am thinking of trying again with another dealer in her area.
* Anyone know anything about this Nissan Consult III that they refer to in the manual or how much it would cost to have them run it?
* There appears to be an application call CVTZ50 that connects to a ELM327 OBD2 dongle to read the value. Anyone have experience with the app?
* How reliable is this deterioration rate? I think it's suppose to be calculated based on temperature rather than actual fluid state.
Paul