this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
25 points (100.0% liked)

Mechanic Advice

434 readers
1 users here now

This community is for getting help with vehicle or other mechanical problems.

Remember, there are no stupid questions, we want everyone to feel welcome. If you don't want to answer a question that you think is silly, then just move on and keep it to yourself.

Rules:

  1. Don't be a dick

That is all.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
25
CVT lifespan (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by WeebLife@lemmy.world to c/mechanicadvice@lemmy.world
 

Hi everyone,

I have a 2012 Nissan versa which uses a CVT. I am close to hitting 100k miles and just had my transmission serviced. I'm not having any problems with the transmission, but just wanted to do routine maintenance on my car. When I was at the shop, the guy kept telling me how unreliable CVTs are and I'm lucky I got 100k miles out of it. He also made it sound like it could totally fail at any point in the near future. So I'm just curious how long do CVTs last? He said they typically fail around 70k miles. If they truly don't last much longer than 100k miles then maybe I should look into getting a new car while mine is still working. I tried looking it up online but I don't trust the AI content.

Thanks!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I never heard of CVT failed at 100k km. Yes CVT is somehow unreliable but i never work on a nissan that failed at that range, assuming oil and filter change is done regularly. The one that i replaced usually have a few things going on: one is they used the wrong fluid, sometime for extended amount of time, second is running low on fluid, third is service irregularly(or none at all, so the fluid is close to black when it comes out), or the one car with horrible quality CVT that known to fail. I honestly never replace one with good record that early, or at all, most tend to caused by maintenance issue.

160k km is not really at the point of failure either from my experience, i usually work on car with OG CVT that goes longer than that, sometime even to 300k. people usually replace their car anyway before reaching 300k. If it still accelerate well then keep driving.

Also pro tip: change the fluid half the recommended mileage, and disregard those that say "life time" and maintenance free. They say 80k you do 40k. And also be gentle with the acceleration. That's how you extend the life of a CVT.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

The early Nissan CVTs are famous for failures at very low mileage. OPs mechanic is not wrong. Consider, this is a 13yo transmission with less than 100k on it. If you're seeing 100k transmissions right now, they're likely less than 5 years old.

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago

Again, not in my experience. Though i'm speaking in a place on the other half of the planet so thing could be different here.