Nissan Maxima: '01 maxima 5-speed leaking trans oil

Douglas Berson wrote: 

Bad differential bearings most likely. A common problem on 5spd Max's.
50K is a little early, but not uncommon. Hope it's under warranty.

-jim

JimV wrote:
 
It happens on the 95-99 5-speed Maximas, not the 2000 and 2001s. Also,
when the bearings go bad, your tranny gets noisy, you can hear the gears
whining. Oil leaks are something else.

CD

Codifus wrote: 

The 5th gen still can have bearing problems, although it's much less
common I agree. If they have changed the seal twice, either they
messed-up the new seal (twice), the diff bearing is loose, or there is a
groove worn in the axle which would be tough to do in 50K.

-jim

The dealer is going to try to replace the axel bearing with the seal.
Luckily it is covered under the drivetrain warranty.

Thanks for the advice
I'll let you know...meanwhile I am still driving a rental GMC Canyon pickup.
Great for hauling things...but it is not my maxima


"JimV" <com> wrote in message news:net... 

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 11:21:20 -0400, in alt.autos.nissan.maxima you
wrote: 

2000-2001 trannies are almost identical to 1995-1999. In fact, you
can easily put one into the other. If Nissan didn't fix the problem
(there is no tsb or anything), I think it may well be just a matter of
time before we start to see 2000/2001 trannies showing up with the
same problems as they age. 1995-1999 saw them go anywhere from
30-100k miles. Some had noise, others didn't. What is definitive is
axle free play on the differential carrier bearing causing the oil
leak past an otherwise competant seal. From what I have seen and
personally experienced, it only affects the driver side. The leak
will start out as a sweat covering the tranny case and then manifest
itself as significant leakage causing ground puddles.

Anyways, glad to hear you are covered under warranty. Let us know
exactly what they fixed. Hopefully it is something definitive.

CW

The problem is with the 97-98 manual transmissions. It is the result of
excessive preload on the differential bearings caused by using the incorrect
thickness of shims during transmission assembly. Nissan is aware of the
problem and corrected it by 1999. It still may be an occasional problem, of
course.



"CW" <com> wrote in message
news:com... 

Where do you get that only 97-98 are affected. Maxima.org is full of
reports from 1995-1999. I do not think the factory shimmed properly
for preload at all. They probably used one size shim and felt that to
handle the majority of cases. THere is no TSB or any other indication
that Nissan was aware of the problem.

That said, when the bearings went on my 1995 maxima, I went with a
2001 with the *hope* that maybe nissan corrected the issue. In any
case, if my last transmission is any indication (bearings started to
go at 80k miles or so), this 2001 tranny should last me the life of
the car.

CW

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 12:57:44 -0500, "Steve Manifold"
<utexas.edu> wrote:
 

ive have the same problem now the only thing that i did to slow down the
leak was to use 2 seals instead of one. the dealer tried to fix and wanted
to charge me arn and a leg to fix so i did the work myself and used 2
seals and have been riding for six months now and all i get is a drip or
two nothing like i had before. i hope that helps you