5th Feb 2008, 21:32

I just recently purchased a 05 Altima, and to seem to notice the shifting problem between first and second. It almost feels like a car with manual shifting.

22nd Feb 2008, 10:39

I find these comments left so far troubling. I test drove and bought a used 2005 Altima. The test drive went very well. When I got home, I too notice the same hard shift between 1 and 2. I'm surprised Nissan Corp. hasn't realized there is a problem and recommended a solution based on what I'm reading so far.

Previously I had a '97 Nissan Sentra and had no major problems with it. I sold it with 185K miles on it.

2nd Mar 2008, 17:00

I just bought a 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5 in December and started having the same hard thump between 1st and 2nd gears this past week. It's still under warranty, but it sickens me to think that such a late model vehicle would have these problems. I bought it so that I wouldn't have to worry about being stranded on the road somewhere. I'm going to trade it in as soon as I can. I'd rather take the monetary hit then end up on 95 with a dead car. This is my first Nissan. I was always a die hard Honda owner. Looks like I'll be going back to Honda.

8th Mar 2008, 13:58

I have a 2002 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL, auto; which I bought about 1.5 years ago. I never had any problems, but it started yesterday with transmission. The gear jerks or pulls back from 1 -2 but from 2-3 the rpm raises up, but the gear does not engage instantaneously and smoothly. It shifts later.

Any idea what may be wrong, before I take it to the mechanic?

11th Mar 2008, 16:14

I bought a 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5s at the end of December from CarMax. I returned a 2002 VW Jetta that was making a weird engine noise 2 days after I bought it from them. So, I brought it back and got the Nissan instead. I, too, have always been a die hard Honda fan, but decided to branch out this time. The Altima was great for the first month and a half, but in the past few weeks, it's been doing the same thud between 1st and 2nd gear. I'm taking it into the Nissan Dealership (it's still under warranty, just over 53k miles) on Thursday. I've printed out some of the advice you guys have posted so far, so I don't get jerked around, but I do feel very uncomfortable continuing to own this car if they're not able to easily fix it or find "nothing" wrong.

14th Mar 2008, 18:59

I have a 2005 Altima Se R. I am so tired of the hard kick from 1st to second. I am taking it to the dealer in the morning to see what the problem could be, I will post another comment after I find out what's wrong.

16th Mar 2008, 10:46

I also have an 05 altima 2.5s I have noticed the hard shift for a while now. I got concerned when the trans would jump by letting off the throttle. Feels almost like driving a stick driving in low gear when you tap and let off the gas. I tried to do filter change, a bolt at back of the pan is being blocked by sub frame, there is a hole for 1/4inch drive extension but must have a very shallow socket. So I just changed the fluid, still does it. By the way my battery died last year also without warning. its weird we are all having the same problems...

26th Mar 2008, 04:48

I have a 2005 nissan altima. I am having the same problems. first jerking, then it wouldn't shift right, then the car wouldn't move. I got stuck on the freeway at 2am on my way home from work. It's been five days and my car won't even turn on so I can role the windows up. I took it to a shop and they told me that I would have to replace the transmission. actually 4 different shops told me that. I HATE NISSAN!!!

26th Mar 2008, 10:19

2007 Altima - When driving the rpms would jump up 2000 for no reason. The car would hesitate when doing all types of driving. The car wouldn't accelerate from standing still. The dealer last month said they couldn't find anything wrong. Bring it back if it happens again.

Now a month latter with the car bucking like a bronco, and having a 5 second delay from a stop to a crawl. It is waiting for a new transmission from the dealer. To think that I thought all of my problems were due to bad gas. (The car!)

Now the question that I have when I get my car back is 1) Do I sell it? 2) Trade it? 3) Keep it? Oh by the way it has only 12000 miles on it.

P.S. Yes it is under warranty.

3rd May 2008, 12:37

Today my wife experienced her Nissan Altima stall for no apparent reason. Took car to dealership and was informed by service tech that there was a recall for the computer "ECM". I also explained that when going from first to second gear, the car feels like it jerks into gear "yeah we get a lot of those complaints for that year vehicle" the service tech said. It's your transmission and it's pretty expensive to repair I was told. Mind you.. the car only has 60k miles on it.

I thought I was making a good decision by going with Nissan over any other manufacturer; guess I was wrong. I know one thing for certain.. with gas being so high and the cost of living going up everyday, we don't have money to put into this vehicle. I hope the car lasts.

29th May 2008, 09:17

Hey everyone, I have a 2005 Nissan Altima as well, and after reading everyone's posts, started to do some research (too bad I bought the car in Dec. of '07 before finding this out):

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems/recalls/recallresults.cfm?start=1&SearchType=QuickSearch&rcl_ID=07V527000&summary=true&PrintVersion=NO

I hope this helps the Altima owners that are having the "stalling" problems. This may explain a lot.

26th Jul 2008, 04:53

Yep. So here it is 3:05am and obviously I'm disturbed enough to be making an entry.

I have a 2002 Nissan Altima 3.5l SE. Yesterday, well technically two days ago as it is now Saturday, my transmission FAILED! Two days prior to an "internal" transmission failure I had my A/C fixed. Which is probably unrelated to the transmission failure, but the timing is odd to say the least.

This car of mine had approx. 83,000 miles on it. I thought it was quite odd that the transmission would go out so early on a Nissan. When I bought my car I figured it would likely go for 140k to 200k miles without any need for a major repair.

My problems began what seems like a year and a half ago after some major winter storms here in Colorado. The first problem arose out of a very cold winter. Though I wouldn't come to find this problem until the hot days of summer. When I noticed the A/C didn't blow cold anymore.

So, every year since 2005, I've simply had the A/C recharged at an annual cost of 125 dollars. I thought having the A/C fixed this year would be an end to the recurring expense. The problem was a low side pressure hose had a leak; after repair and recharge the total cost was 424 dollars.

Two days prior to the A/C repair, I purchased factory rear brake pads and installed them myself. The car was making some noise, and upon investigation the pads were worn down to the warning stick.

The front end was seemingly permanently squeaky. A problem that was either not recognized or heard by the Nissan technicians. As it was always dismissed as brake noise by the dealership. I was certain it had nothing to do with the braking system. But, I must admit this was my first notion as well. But, after putting in new brake pads the noise still didn't go away. Well I had taken the car in for new tires at a tire place around two to two and a half years ago, and they told me at that time that my driver side front wheel had a bad bearing. So I had Nissan replace the ball bearing.

The noise went away for about two weeks, and then came back. The noise was a high pitched squealing noise that has a bit of a semblance to the noise conjured up by the bayou bad boy in the movie Deliverance. Wreet wreet wreet. So, I let the noise go again for about six to nine months.

I took it to the Nissan dealership twice after the repair and within the warranty time span, but was always sent away empty handed as they could never hear the noise. So I took the car to the tire place for yet another ball bearing replacement. Well these guys did quite the number on my car. The repair job was nearing completion, and then all of a sudden the CV Joint Axle was stripped and needed replacement. At the time, I figured the guys over at Nissan didn't do a good job and had likely caused the damage. But, eventually I figured out that the tire place had likely caused the damage.

So, when I took the car in on Tuesday July 23 2008 (think A/C fix!) I told the Nissan dealership service guys hey I had this stuff done at the tire place, and ever since then the steering wheel shimmies and the car is pulling to the right. Diagnosis was they installed the wrong CV Joint Axle.

Of course this story was supposed to be about a failed transmission. But, after doing some research on a failed transmission, I've learned that the front end squeak may have been the transmission failing, and not the braking system and not the ball bearing.

What also comes to my attention now, is that for several months the car was slow to engage as I would attempt to back out of whatever parking spot I was in. But, given enough gas it would back up just fine. Perhaps this was an early warning sign that the transmission was en route to failure. And, perhaps the failure is in part my own doing. But, I've never had a failed transmission on any car I've ever owned, and I certainly didn't ever expect it would happen to my beloved Nissan, which I always believed was a superior product.

This was first and only brand new car. I was probably going to be a Nissan lifer. But, as of this writing... I WILL NEVER OWN ANOTHER NISSAN!!!