In January 2019, a class-action lawsuit in federal court (one of several) continued after a judge ruled Nissan's motion to dismiss the suit was "meritless."
The plaintiff described the same saga thousands of Nissan CVT owners have suffered through: her 2014 Altima's CVT started shuddering, then failed in June 2018, resulting in a $3500 bill for replacement. Check out our Lawsuits page for more legal proceedings involving Nissan CVTs.
Faulty Transmissions
Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVTs) are fantastic for fuel economy and offer several other benefits -- when they work. Unfortunately for Nissan owners, various model years with CVTs have been plagued with rampant reports of early-mileage failure since they were first introduced in the 1990s.
No vehicle is perfect. Every manufacturer will occasionally discover a defect in a system as complicated as a modern automobile; that's just the nature of engineering. Are Nissan's CVTs getting a bad rap from a few extremely unlucky owners, or failing at a much higher rate than major powertrain components on competing vehicles? On this site, we present evidence pertaining to the CVT problem -- not just anecdotal, but numbers that can be compared directly with other makes and models.
Fast Facts
- In 2010, Nissan USA was forced to extend the warranty on their transmissions to 120,000 miles (up from the factory 60,000-mile powertrain warranty) for virtually all Nissan models from 2003-2010 which used CVTs.
- The 2013 and 2014 Altima are both in the top 10 "Worst Vehicles" on CarComplaints.com, which considers both the number and seriousness of complaints submitted to their large database. For both of those model years, the category "Transmission Problems" is the most common complaint type, by a large margin.
- An owner of the 2013 Altima has started a petition for Nissan to address the CVT problem through a recall or extended warranty that has garnered over 400 signatures so far (for a model that is only five years old, and the average buyer's mileage is still under 100,000).
Our Goal
This site is intended to focus the wealth of resources on Nissan CVT problems across the web into a single hub, making it easier for owners, regulators, attorneys, and interested media to get information and communicate with one another. If you fall into any of these categories and have a story to tell, or helpful information to contribute, don't hesitate to contact us.