The Cube's CVT has been on my list for a while. At 167,000 miles it had only had one fluid change, a simple drain-and-fill around 80k, so this time I decided to do it right: drop the pan, clean the magnets, and replace both the screen and the cooler filter.
I grabbed a box of Nissan Genuine NS-2 fluid and ordered the filters from Amazon. Unfortunately the first screen kit showed up with the wrong pan gasket. The correct kit, from DCMR, was actually listed as not fitting the Cube, but searching by the transmission model instead of the car confirmed it was the right one. The correct gasket is on the left.
Before dropping the pan I did a quick flush. I drained into an empty oil jug to get a rough idea of how much came out, refilled through the dipstick tube, ran the car, then drained it again.
With the pan off I was pleasantly surprised. Given the mileage, I expected a lot more metal on the magnets and in the screen.
While I was under there, I swapped the cooler filter too.
The filters and the pan all torque to 70 in-lb. In hindsight I wish I'd stopped at 65 on the pan with the nitrile gasket, and next time I'll use an OEM metal gasket instead. The final refill took almost 5 quarts, and I reset the fluid degradation counter with my scan tool.
Good for another 80,000 miles? Time will tell!
