Micra / Versa automatic transmission fluid level (4-speed AT)

Hi All

Anyone know what the correct fluid level is for the automatic transmission?

The dip stick has no graduations.

Thanks

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I didn't even know that this car even came with one of those dip sticks. I thought it was one of those sealed systems that required dealer/garage maintenance. Thanks for the picture and info; looks like I just learned something else about my car.

I think you are right and Nissan does not plan on DIY maintenance for this car. It would be nice to check this at regular oil changes and not need the dealer to do it. Hopefully the dealer will tell me if this tiny dip stick means anything. update to follow when I know more.

PS, can you all send an email to Nissan Canada and request the dealer maintenance manual be available for purchase? I have always been able to buy this for previous cars such as 240sx, pulsar, maxima but nothing appears to be available for the Micra.

I assume the Micra cup guys have a service manual.....

Man.....Adam and Dave could use this info about now....5 and 6 hours from home!

Remove front bumper, remove airbox in the lower corner. Laying on the ground you reach up with a fork, bent the tines so only one is up - release the latch and have a friend pull the thing off - takes no effort at that point.

Proper filling procedure is to remove the drain plug, run the engine and fill until a steady stream comes out of the plug... i won't be doing that part lol

A full 5 litres of atf in - started leaking red without the engine on, about 7 hours in and it's still functioning :p

On my trip from Niagara to Quebec, I passed through Perth, and then part of Perth passed through me :P

Middle of the highway - a rock half the size of my head (triangular, about 8-9 inches long, 4 inches thick) passed under Dave... but I'm lower than he is.

I had made a splitter / engine under tray from 3/4 plywood - this is the view from the front, the rock perforated the wood in two places and you can see the shiny "mystery liquid" near the rear of it.
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I sat down last night and redesigned the replacement for this - going to make it out of ABS with Sheet metal base for armour.
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Anyway... I got as lucky as I possibly could given the speed of impact and the size of the object, while originally worried that I had cracked the auto-transmission's bellhousing, it ended up being a small hole in the oil pan. The fluid that was dripping was fairly clear, slightly brown, and didn't increase in rate by cycling through the gears - 9 hours later the clutches had issue putting power down -> the oh **** moment.

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Dave called his Nissan dealership to talk to a tech (since all of Quebec's Nissan service centres are closed on the weekend) and asked how we could get the dip stick out of the filler tube to put in some oil - his response was "It's not a dipstick, and that's not a filler tube, you can't access the transmission without a special Nissan specific tool that puts fluid in from the bottom of the transmission" - after explaining to him that I didn't care if it wasn't a dip stick / filler tube - it's a tube with access to the trans-oil, and has a plug on the end of it - so how do I get it off? - "you can't, another special tool is needed to remove the cap", and that "you should try to unbolt the tube and fill it that way" - finally got him to describe how the cap comes off / how the tool functions...

Tada... super special Nissan tool that they spent money on to keep you out of the transmission...

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15 litres of oil and 2 days later, I got home.

Here's the new oil pan in place -> the sticker with the black sharpie is where the rock hit

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The damaged oil pan is below - a few different views showing how it was punched up - the circles pressed in to it come from the valve body mounting bolts inside the transmission, with the hole itself being a tear when the pan deformed around one of the bolt heads.

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The transmission / diff takes 3 litres to fill, there's a snorkel attached to the drain plug on the inside - the idea being that once enough fluid is in the thing, it will be at a level capable of leaking out of that tube - and thus, is full.

To expand on this for anyone who wants to do their own transmission services - here's how the "Breather Cap" (not dip stick) and Breather Tube function and get uncoupled.
Red = locking cam
Green = where the tube is
Blue = target that needs to be pushed
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From the tube view - same legend - to get this view (and to reach in if you can't get under the car) remove the air box behind the bumper that's pop riveted to the fender liner and other stuff in there, there's like 4-5 of them in there.
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By using the Super Special Tool™ available from A.C.E. you can press on the locking cam and a friend can reach in from the top and pull it out, there's no resistance on the cap at all if the tab is pushed in. You'll need a funnel that fits the tube (quite narrow).

For best results you are going to need to drop the oil pan, this is going to be messy. Once the oil pan is off you can inspect and clean off the magnet - the snorkel that's attached to the drain plug port can also be checked. Let it drain for a while.

Reattach or replace the oil pan -> you can get a new gasket for $51 from Nissan -> once reattached, pour in 2 litres of Matic-D/J/K (Generic Nissan) compatible oil. Place a clean capture cup under the drain plug and remove it, there shouldn't be much of anything coming out of it if it was drained long enough. Start the car -> the transmission only needs about 1-1.5 litres of oil to function, the rest is for proper cooling and the differential. Cycle through the gears from drive to reverse several times - this will reload the coolant lines and radiator of any fluid that drained from them. Turn the car off and add the remaining litre of oil until it starts coming out of the drain plug steadily - you won't need to add the whole litre as there is always going to be some residual oil in the coolant lines and rad.

"proper procedure" for a full flush would have the car running and in gear (don't forget your e-brake), while you add the third and likely a fourth litre of oil (Canadian tire sells 5L jugs for $30) - This is to clean out the last little bit of old stuff in the lines and rad - I didn't bother with this since I had already run 15 litres through the thing :P

Once the stream of fluid coming from the drain plug slows (about 10 seconds after you've stopped pouring) you're good to put the plug back in and tighten it down - if the car is running do not wait for the stream to stop completely - the wash of the fluid can cause more than desired to escape down the snorkel, this is less of a worry while the car is off since the fluid isn't moving inside the housing.


The only difference between this procedure and a Nissan Tech's procedure appears to be that they have a pressurised pump (think grease gun) that plugs in somewhere near the bottom of the transmission through which they fill the housing... everything else is the same.

Oh Hey... Look what I "found"

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mlvkyf...eplacement.pdf
^^ internal Micra AT fluid maintenance document with illustrations


the forum has a 19kb file size limit on ".pdf" lol

Did service on transmission pan off. None of this required specialty tools or any body panels coming off. You might want to look at it yourself if your mechanically inclined before following this. The description of the breather however did me some favor with releasing it. Done by myself with nobody over head.