Thread: Nissan X-Trail for towing boat

Originally Posted by gonetropo

the issue with the nissan is that the belt pushes force onto a pulley rather than dragging it, causes the belt to "whiplash" and the metal inserts get loose.
bloody awful things

Obviously by the comments about cvt's no one actually knows anything factual about them.

ALL the cvt's with a belt work on the principle of push to drive, and some chain cvt's also work on the principle of push to drive, while others work on the principal of pull to drive.
The belt and chain are kept tight during operation, otherwise they wouldn't drive, this is also the reason the bearings fail and become noisy, but the bearings aren't plain ball bearings they are built to handle the extra load.
The Jatco cvt's have a belt and Subaru's and others have a chain, btw Subaru have two different cvt's the Gen 2 TR580 and the Gen 1 TR690.

The Nissan cvt is made by Jatco and is used in multiple makes of vehicle, Mitsubishi, Renault, Chrysler, Fiat, GM, Jeep, Suzuki, and possibly some other makes.
Jatco makes several different versions of cvt's some are lighter duty, ie Tiida etc and others are heavier duty ie X trail, Maxima etc

One of the biggest problems with cvt's s the vehicle manufacturer and the owner, the manufacturer stretches the service intervals out for environmental and other reasons and the owner because NZ vehicle owners are neglectful of actual service requirements.
Jatco used to recommend a service, which was drop the pan replace the filter and clean the pan then flush the transmission at 60,000km

Yes you can fit an external transmission cooler to most cvt transmissions and if towing I would recommend it, Yes you can use a cvt for towing.
Towing creates extra heat so while the transmission has a bit of extra cooling capacity start towing and creating extra heat and you don't have any extra cooling capacity.

The transmission controller may have an inbuilt "safety" feature, if the fluid temp reaches a certain temp it limits the ability of the engine to rev and engages a higher ratio, no good if you are going uphil at the time. you pull over and allow the transmission to cool down. BTW that temp is around 160deg C from memory.

The Xtrail is a Mitsi Outlander with a few different body panels, there are several different make of vehicles that are the 'Same" as each other just with different body panels to make them look different.

There are problems with cvt's like there is with other transmissions, Colorado torque converter shudder, Ranger leadframes and valvebodies, cvt valvebody issues, everything is mechanical and can have a problem but some problems occur at higher km's while others appear earlier in life.