I have had my 2006 SE for about 7 months now. It has given me so many problems I don't even want to list them. I am now possibly facing a transmission replacement but I figured I'd consult you guys before taking it in. I have never liked automatic transmissions and this one is no different.
About a month ago when my wife was driving my truck the tranny started acting weird. Kind of like it was stuck in a high gear. We stopped and I tried driving it, but after I restarted the truck it shifted normal. A day later the same thing happened. After some research I found out that these trucks have what is called a "limp mode." Basically it gives you one gear to get it to a service station for repair. I took it to a shop and they told me the code said something about a selinoid fault. More research and I found out the radiators in the pathfinders fail and leak coolant into the transmission. I bought an aftermarket cooler to install, but found a pretty large factory cooler already up front. I decided to roll with it and just do the radiator bypass and flush. When I flushed it I found the strawberry milkshake of death pouring out. I went ahead and finished the flush hoping new oil would loosen everything up and it would work normal again. Well it pretty much worked. My truck has gone into limp mode 4 times since the new fluid. Shutting it off and restarting always clears it and I can drive normal again. Until 2 days ago. I took my truck on a 2 hour drive on a 100 degree day with the a/c on (I had a 3 week old baby and a wife that refuses to be hot). With only about 1/4 mile left on the trip my truck refused to shift out of 1st gear. RPMs just kept climbing above 5k. I let the truck sit a few hours and have not had a repeat of the incident. On the return trip we left at night when it was about 80 degrees and had no issues. My suspicion is that it just got too hot. I rinsed out he cooler and I also pulled the grille off to let more air hit he cooler since it sits right behind the wide v portion of the grille. Do you guys think I need a bigger cooler? Another flush (oil may have a slight burnt smell now)? A complete rebuild? A new truck entirely? I have almost exclusively owned manual transmission vehicles in the past and this truck is making me hate autos even more. I've had tranny trouble in all 4 autos I've owned. Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading. Any insight is appreciated.