Check this article on GTRblog.com out:

http://www.gtrblog.com/index.php/200...n-oil-r?blog=4

 

It will still fail.

I really have to question where they gleaned their facts from. The failure of those gears is from bending fatigue. Oil does NOTHING in stopping that. The sole reason that oil would be linked would be from failure to adequately transfer heat. But that in turn begs the question of the material chosen for the gears.

The gears will still fail, regardless of the oil shear properties or thermal properties. The gears are simply underdesigned, be it materially from poor foundry work, or from failure to take into account high loads that might be experienced. Both of these further lead into questioning what factor of safety they used; and if not for strength, then what purpose did they designate for such a lack of cushion?

Summary:
Oil is a placebo, and frankly it's snakeoil. They are merely looking at non-fundamental issues and repeating what a lab told them. The lab is correct, but they are learning about the wrong issue.

The gears can be thought of as a machining process, as they spin, they can tear away bits of metal, oil creates a boundary between it. Too hot and the oil film collapses, allowing the metal to minutely and rapidly weld and tear bits away.

But this has a very insignificant role in the actual failure of the gears in the manner of those pictures.

 

^ One hell of a first post.
Nice job.

 

Thanks. That supports my opinion that the Achilles heel of the car is the tranny and to avoid the car until that device is replaced significantly.

Nissan: I had planned to seriously look at your car. Nice price point. But, I hate expensive repairs like transmissions.... I'd NEVER touch one of these outside of warranty, so resale on this car is now, afaik, in the toilet. At least in model years without a tranny fix.

To repair the issue:

Put a new tranny design in all new cars. One that is strong and tested (heck, call Porsche and put in PDK's).

Give any car owner a transmission once, no matter how old the car is, on the house, if the problem unit is the current design.

Lower the power AND lighten the car to make the machinery work less hard.

JB

 

Thank you blackburry for the complement.

JCB-Memphis, I agree with your sentiment. I'm personally leery of the new automated gear boxes as they place too much faith in the perfection of design. Hate to say it, but for these kinda gearboxes, they should invite hot-headed entusiasts and say "break it." What's ironic is that while it works wonderfully under one enviroment, it drops the ball entirely in another. Real world > comp. simulation.

 

Comp and simulation is the only way, how many hours could they have put into mechanical testing 40K 200K, 5000 cars delivered and that's only 8 or 40 hours respectively before the owner base catches up with the factory in terms on on use hours. something is bound to happen

 

I understand what your saying, but I'm looking at for the 10% outliers. Much like aerodynamics testing, there remains an art element that must be tested with real world conditioning. Hence, I personally hold the opinion that the extreme conditions must be physically tested in the most efficient/economical manner.

I know that many OEM's routinely real world test their cars for 100K+ miles. Computers are limited to the algorithms they employ. Naturally it's entirely relative to the car specific specification. Ideally for a GTR, you would put it through the wringer, beat it to hell and back, tear it down and analyze everything. But I do agree with your statement.

 

Wow, those are terrific ideas!! But how to get Nissan to implement them? So far they have simply denied transmission warranty repair to owners who used Launch Control (LC) based on black box evidence of VDC off, without even opening and inspecting the cause of the failure.

I have a very unusual beef with Nissan. My dealer set the buttons and let me launch my car 4 times in a row on the test-drive. No disclosure was given to me verbally or written, linking LC and VDC off with a voided warranty. I drove the car off the lot without a power train warranty and didn't even know it. Two weeks later, I read about a LC transmission failure on the NAGTROC site. Since then I have not driven my car. I bought the car for LC - not only can't I use it now. But I have no warranty on the car, making it real difficult to sell to anyone. I tried to return the car to the dealer, but they wouldn't answer my emails, phone calls or letters.

So I retained an attorney and just begun a CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT. The case is a lot more than just about my situation. The discovery phase of the lawsuit will try to get the real facts about:

1. The integrity and durability of the GR6 transmission, and whether Nissan is using an improper, poorly lubricating fluid. Nissan is discontinuing LC on 2010 models, so that it does not have to do the proper transmission upgrades to allow proper, non-abusive LC use under warranty.

2. The wheel hop during LC, which has to be a severe stress on the transmission

3. Improper disclosure of LC by Nissan at the corporate and dealer levels: Disclosure should have been real simple: "To activate LC, VDC must be turned off and this will void your warranty should something break. USE LC AT YOUR OWN RISK"

4. Failure of Nissan to address LC at all in its manual. So what is proper use and what constitutes abuse? I don't know - 1 launch, 5 launches, and how close together? What should the transmission oil temp be before attempting a launch? Instead of denying existence of LC, Nissan should have explained its proper use. And since it seems they never intended use by owners (only journalists), LC should have been not included in the 2009 GT-R. But then again, how would Nissan be able to sell all those cars, without that feature?

5. Deceptive advertising, with support and even Nissan supervision of some magazine testing and promotional videos - demonstating and using LC to obtain the maximum performance figures - to obtain a competitive advantage over other supercars like Porche and Corvette. Then not allowing owner to use LC, unless he is willing to fork over 20k every time the transmission fails.

I have not broken my transmission yet, but then again I have not driven my car since October 4th. From what I know now about launching the car, my transmission is probably in some stage of breaking down. Hopefully the lawsuit will get to the bottom of all this, with investigation and testimony from transmission engineers and experts on transmission oil fluids.

There is absolutely NO DOWNSIDE to this lawsuit for anyone. In worst case, there is no change in Nissan policy, but they still end up looking bad on their part. BEST CASE: All of us get a better car and warranty, with real possibility of beefed up parts able to take stresses of LC. Even those people who never use LC would stand to gain from a better transmission.

 

This is probably a dumb question (as I am not a lawyer), but if you buy an AWD high power car from other manufacturers (say, Porsche 911 turbo, Audi R8, etc.) and rev the engine up to 5,000rpm and dump the clutch, and do that 50x, and the transmission is most likely going to go bad too.. and I doubt those will be covered by warranty either... right?!

I do think in your case, maybe the case should be against the dealer, who setup the LC and let you do it 4x, without disclose the fact that it is for sure a task that's punishing to the drivetrain..

?!

 

"and the transmission is most likely going to go bad too.. and I doubt those will be covered by warranty either... right?!"
You might burn out a clutch but the transmission should not go.....

 

I still think that when you drop a clutch repeatly, the shock to the transmission has to result in some damage..

I am sure we have all seen those video on YouTube where Evo or Imprezza actually snap their driveshafts, etc.

Anyway, just saying that I think most of the actual damage in the GT-R so far seems to be from user abuse.. and the same kind of abuse in other AWD car would most likely result in some sort of damage as well..

Anyway, this is all just guess from my part.. I certainly hope that Nissan will work w/ Borg-Warner to beef up the tranny further. That will be good for the consumers!