OT- 08' Rogue Transmission. Fork in the road.

2008 Nissan Rogue CVT trans belt broke. Cost is between 2,000 low -4000$. Requires total rebuild. The car is a 2-owner with 130,000 miles. Daily driver, overall nice shape. Big question. Run away or fix it? I do not plan on doing any of the work myself.

(quoted from post at 20:56:21 11/04/19) 2008 Nissan Rogue CVT trans belt broke. Cost is between 2,000 low -4000$. Requires total rebuild. The car is a 2-owner with 130,000 miles. Daily driver, overall nice shape. Big question. Run away or fix it? I do not plan on doing any of the work myself.

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High-tech vehicles that get great mileage often have high-tech problems that cost WAY more than all the gasoline they "saved".

$2000 to $4000 would have bought a lot of gasoline for an old "gas guzzler"!

Just say'in!

Go find a another car with the money you would spend on fixing the one you have.

crush it!!!

X2

Hard to justify that cost for an 11 year old Nissan with those miles. If you bail on it, I imagine it will get parted or a smart guy will rebuild it for cheap and either drive it or sell it for a profit.

Tranny went out on my wife's Dodge Caravan at ~150k miles. She loves the thing so I got a quote from a shop. $2600 to install a "rebuilt" tranny with a 90 day warranty. She didn't want to go that far for the car and asked if there was any other option. I told her I'd try to fix it and if it worked, great and if not not loss as it was worthless with a dead tranny anyway.

Bought a service manual for that tranny off Ebay for ~$10. Dropped the tranny and put it on a bench. Tore it down and found a broken shaft with worn out splines. Bought some used parts for it, a set of gaskets and seals, oil and filter screen for about $250. Reassembled it and installed it. Kept fingers and toes crossed and fired it up. Shifts and works fine. That was about 5 years and something over 50k miles ago now. I do regret not pulling the drive plate and figuring out how to replace the rear main seal while the tranny was out.

I highly doubt you can get it repaired for the lower end of you estimate, unless you are installing a used part that was found cheap and/or doing it yourself. The labor & parts involved with a trans replacement could be around $1k alone.

CVT transmissions seem to have a high failure rate, much more than reg autos, some CVT's don't seem to last much after their warranty period. They are expensive to repair or replace and many transmission shops probably won't even touch them. For this and few other reasons I will do my best to never own a CVT vehicle.

It?s your money but if it were me I?d figure out how to do the work myself

130K is not that many miles these days. Can you buy as good of a car for $4K as you would have if you fixed the Rogue? My guess is you would not.

The problem with CVT transmissions is, when they fail, there is usually nothing left to save internally. The steel link-belt runs directly on the sheaves, so any slippage of the belt results in gauling and steel spread throughout the unit. The overlooked thing about CVTs is most of them require regular fluid changes. I think this oversight is what causes most failures. The Mini Cooper, for instance, is supposed to have the fluid (spendy$) and filter changed every 30K.

130k is good for a CVT.
Most only last 100 to 125k.

check www.car-part.com for a used one.

See if Nissan has any sort of a "secret" warranty on the CVT. Our 2010 Cube did and it extended it out to 100,000 mi.
IIRC I first found out about it on google.

(quoted from post at 13:15:49 11/05/19) 130K is not that many miles these days. Can you buy as good of a car for $4K as you would have if you fixed the Rogue? My guess is you would not.

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This is the only way to do the math. If there are emotional considerations such as loving it or hating it, then that will override the logic. I try not to let my emotions dictate my financial decisions.

I was considering a Nissan with CVT around six years ago. My research into the reliability of both that one and the Cooper Mini convinced me to pass. My daughter was considering the Cooper with the CVT and I recommended against it so she researched it some more and got negative feedback.

"Go find another car."

Where are you going to find another car for $2000-$4000 that isn't going to be at least as old, have at least as many miles on it, and needs at least as much work as this one???

Short answer is, NOWHERE.

Unless the body is rusty, this car is worth fixing. Fix it, drive it a year, and you've got your money back.

I will have to check the owners manual for our Subaru, it has a CVT transmission, but it only has 17,000 miles, We traded the last one in at 50,000 because of electronic problems.

A quick google search reviled that was one that the factory doubled the warranty on the CVT to 10 years 120,000 miles. You just missed on both accounts. But it would be worth a call to Nissan and complain and see if they can give any help.

Yep they sure do and repair costs today are out of hand . when i first started twisting wrenches in a dealership customer pay rate was 7.50 and hour and we as the wrench twister got HALF , warranty work was 6.50 and hour flat rate . Then it went up to 9 bucks customer and 8.50 warranty. NOW your looking at over a 100 bucks and hour and the mechanic sure as heck does not see no 50 and hour or more . And he becomes a slave to the tool wagon as every years model bring on a couple new tools ya got to have to do your job with and god help ya if you buy your won scan tool that still will not do everything the factory scanner will. and you have to update each year . Nah not CVT for me bad enough with the reg SLUSH BOX sine they have only ever made two types of them and that is the one that is OUT and the one that is going out . BUT atleast you can work on them with few special tools and if you know where to go you can get all the parts for a rebuild for around 500 bucks up from the days gone by where a master rebuild kit including the converter was around 250. . I have rebuilt many C4-6's many 904's and 727's and a hand full of the Chebby tranny's . A 904 or a 727 could be done from out to back in in under four hours and back on the road. Fords took a bit longer . BUT this was back in younger days when i could move faster.

We had a CVT in a 1990 or so Subaru and it went to over 200 k miles. We had heard some of them had drive chain blow apart but that was a long time ago, a first generation CVT. Strange detail I remember was it had an electromagnetic clutch for when you came to idle. 4wd on a pushbutton. Neat little car, tough as nails.