Elgrand E52 CVT Service (Intro)

When my E52 arrived at Southampton docks a year ago I was very enthusiastic about making sure the car was serviced and checked over so that it would last forever.  Once I began looking at the car it seemed that I had been extremely lucky and had bought one that had recently been serviced.  (I bought it from a Japanese dealer who wasn't even advertising the car outside of Japan, and not from an auction so found one that was well maintained)  My mechanic who checked the car over described it as 'mint' and when we checked the oil, it was the cleanest I had ever seen in a used car.

Anyway, fast forward now and its 12 months later and now I am keen to show my car some attention.  The big headline item as I'm sure you all know, is the CVT gearbox.  Let me just summarize what I have picked up so far from the various Facebook groups and forums:

• People often claim the CVT gearbox is bad or prone to failure (especially E51 owners!).  I haven't seen one post anywhere that provides evidence of E52 CVT failures, and most of the comments are not from people with personal experience.  CVT gearboxes do have a bad reputation in the industry, but improvements over the years has led to better units and now many cars have them with no problems.
• It is critical that the gearbox is serviced and maintained regularly as its an expensive problem if it goes wrong.  This is true of a regular automatic gearbox as well.  If the worse was to happen, tt would require a rebuild or replacement (and good luck getting one over here in the UK).
• The E52 CVT gearbox has approx. 10 litres of fluid for running effectively, along with a cooler and a filter.  It also has a removable sump section with a gasket too.
• Nissan originally used NS2 CVT fluid in the 3.5 V6 E52 model, and changed this after a few years to NS3.  NS3 seems to be generally accepted as a better quality fluid, and is therefore recommended by other owners to switch to. (NS2 is not used on any current E52 model being sold by Nissan in Japan)
• The E52 Australia Facebook group suggest that you complete a complete fluid and filter change every 60,000 kms / 37,000 miles.
• The cooler on the E52 CVT is often cited as a potential problem area, so some owners have fitted larger cooler systems to the cars.  (A simple radiator cooler fitted behind the front grill)
• The best way to change the CVT fluid is to 'drop and drain' rather than power flushing it.  This does mean draining several times over the course of a few weeks, but is less prone to a problem.

With all the information to hand, I have secured the following items ready to begin a 3 week CVT service:

• 3 x 5L NS3 CVT Fluid - Bought from Nissan UK Dealer
• 1 x CVT Filter - from eBay (part no. 31726-1XE0A)
• 1 x CVT drain plug O-ring

The plan is to complete the following:

• Week 1 - drain the CVT fluid from the gearbox and refill
• Week 2 - drain the CVT fluid from the gearbox and refill
• Week 3 - drain the CVT fluid from the gearbox, change the filter, change the o-ring and then refill

Hopefully this will help all you E52 owners out there as the gearbox is so critical to our cars and I for one one would like to keep mine running for a long time to come.

I will keep you posted with updates over the next few weeks on how I get on. 

CVT Service - Week 1

CVT Service - Week 2