29th Jun 2010, 06:07

I posted on June 19th at 9:05.

It is now June 29th. I am happy to say that the car is working well with no problems whatsoever. And, it has been the hottest couple of weeks of the year. 95 to 100 just about every day. Maybe I got lucky. One last thing: my car never jerked, it always seemed to shift OK. So, maybe it was the ECM and cam sensors after all (and not the tranny).

29th Jun 2010, 19:56

Thanks for all your posts. I have been an avid Nissan fan since I bought my 2004 Maxima 3.5 SE new off the lot, and today it got stuck in 5th gear and I took the car straight to my mechanic. I am going to try the cam sensors first, valve body 2nd. I can't believe I never noticed this forum before. It would have been nice to get rid of my car before the extended warranty ran out. Oh yeah - I have had the same problems listed with my ABS brakes and stereo.

1st Jul 2010, 18:58

My son bought a used 2004 about 3 months ago in a private sale. About 6 weeks into it, the ABS and brake light comes on. We take it to our mechanic, and he tells us that we need to replace the ABS brake controller unit, and he estimates it will cost around $1300.00. I call a local dealer to get a price, and find out that it's $1900.00. Sounds like a lot of the same problems others have. When will they do something??

11th Jul 2010, 15:00

I have a 2004 Maxima SE. I have owned it for 2 years. We bought it with 47k on it. Since we have owned it we have had roughly $4-5k of warranty work done on it. Thank God it was under warranty still.

There was the rear subframe recall for corrosion which was replaced. Then I had a ticking noise at timing chain on cold start up. I bumped heads for 3 weeks at the dealer to get them to fix the problem. It ended up they changed everything under the timing cover. The catalytic converter went bad as well under warranty.

Now we are at 80k miles. In the last couple of thousand miles, there has been jerking in the tranny from 1st to second and 2nd to 1st. There is a shaking of the car on acceleration also. The shaking has gotten very bad especially at higher speeds but only on acceleration. I'm afraid what the dealer is going to say when we take it in.

13th Jul 2010, 15:10

I own a 2004 Maxima, and had the same problems with gear slippage. I replaced the trans. with a 2006 Quest transmission, and ran well for a while. DO NOT REPLACE a Maxima 2004 with a Maxima 2004 trans. The problem is not only the transmission, but also the sensors. I suggest that we all continue to file complaints both with Nissan and NHTC.

21st Jul 2010, 00:22

I have same jerking problem with my 2004 Nissan Maxima. Can anybody give me ideas what could be wrong with it?

25th Jul 2010, 11:41

I got the same transmission problem at 50k miles, just two month after all warranties of my Maxima 2004 were over. Dealer wasn't able to identify anything. Sometimes it takes about a half an hour driving in the hot weather for the car to start jerking hard, which complicates the identification of the issue. Then I took the car to the transmission shop. They found that I have to replace the valve body, which is going to cost me around $1800. A mechanic told me that the body has been updated since 2004, but they don't have any statistics of failures of the redesigned body.

25th Jul 2010, 14:08

I forgot to mention that transmission flush did not change a thing. The car has been maintained in a timely manner at the same dealership since its purchase in 2004. This did not help.

2nd Aug 2010, 09:07

I also have a 04 Maxima SL. The timing chain repair is going to be $2500, the A/C has gone out 3 times already, the heat went out, rotors need to be replaced, the CD player no longer works.

I'm thinking about switching to Honda.

12th Aug 2010, 20:50

HEY EVERYBODY!!! YOU SHOULD TAKE A LOOK AT THIS:

http://forums.maxima.org/6th-generation-maxima-2004-2008/597683-re5f22a-transmission-fix-7.html#post7647636

GOOD LUCK, PLEASE POST RESULTS, AND DON'T FORGET TO NEVER BUY A NISSAN AGAIN.

14th Aug 2010, 23:23

Rather than looking at Honda (which we didn't even bother to test drive because of all their problems this time) I'd look at the much higher rated and more reliable Ford Fusion. Ours is so much better than the awful Honda we had that there is just no comparison. Our Fusion is now 5 years old and not a single problem, plus it gets much better gas mileage than the Accord.

17th Aug 2010, 14:15

At 116000 miles, my Maxima started having problems. I have read a lot of your complaints, and ended up putting in a new valve body. I now have 140330, and have not had any more problems out of it. It also has been right over a year. So try that route. Hope I could help!!

7th Sep 2010, 15:10

I also have a 2004 Max with about 103K miles that recently started having the same transmission problems that so many have listed. I took my car to the dealership for diagnosis, and was told I need a new trans; $4500. However there were no failure codes returned when they hooked the car to the computer.

How did some of you know to try options other than replacing the transmission? Was it just trial and error, or what?

I called the service tech back at the dealership after reading many of these posts to see if any of the suggestions here were good options for repairing my car. He said that unless the computer returns a code for the part, then they don't recommend just changing parts.

20th Sep 2010, 10:19

Include me on this list.

At approximately 150,000 miles the car started jerking and became embarrassing to drive. Once the tranny became hot the jerking initiated and I felt as if I was taking off in a spaceship at warp speed.

A new valve body attempt failed and eventually resulted with a rebuilt tranny. Final cost = $3,100 at a mechanic shop.

I was informed by my mechanic that Nissan was fully aware of the failing transmission issues with the 2004 - 2005 Maximas. For some reason, Nissan decided to install a new and different transmission regarding the 2004 - 2005 Maxima transmissions. Numerous Maxima transmissions were failing before the 100,000 mile warranty.

Nissan should have placed a recall for the 2004 - 2005 Maximas but never did.

22nd Oct 2010, 09:09

I purchased a 2004 Nissan Maxima about 2 1/2 years ago. The car makes a loud rattling noise from the front end that does not go away. I know personally of 4 other people who have the same car with the same problems. I also am having problems with the transmission slipping and the power sunroof.