Nissan XTrail HT32 Gearbox

ShehanB · January 9, 2022

Hello! Hope you’re all keeping safe!

Yesterday I was driving my moms HT32 XTrail which has 81k kms on it and while driving downhill at the Pita Kotte junction, I felt the usual EV-Petrol shift jerk, a bit intensified and the vehicle started vibrating a bit. Like the engine was sputtering, sort of. And so my obvious reaction was to stop the vehicle.

It was then that I realised that the Engine had shut off. I tried restarting the engine and it did, but when I shifted the gear to try and drive it to the side of the road, the engine turned off again. By then the Engine Check light, ESP, Brake Warning and Master Caution lights were illuminating on the dash. I somehow managed to push the car to a side and park it by the side of the road but unfortunately was not able to find any mechanics to diagnose the issue. So I had to tow it back home.

Can anyone here please give me any credible information regarding this? I’m quite sure it’s the infamous gearbox issue that played up, and I’m sure it has something fishy to do with the apparent “gearbox replacement” that was done in June of 2020 by Sterling Aftercare.

Can anyone give me any advice as to how I should proceed from here on please? Thank you! Hope you all have a much pleasant Sunday than I am having!

iRage · January 9, 2022

The symptoms and even the lights you describe, to me atleast, are indicative of an engine or a hybrid system problem. In almost all hybrid cars (even new petrol cars) things like ESP, TRC, etc..gets turned off or goes in to limp mode when there is a hybrid system (or linked engine) issue. Typically a transmission problem does not make the engine miss or in most cases make it stall out and if the car was in P then I cannot think of how the transmission could even prevent the engine from cranking up (not that it could happen in an automatic...but for some reason the transmission and the engine were bound up then cranking the engine might not be possible..but then you couldn't have rolled the car on to the side anyway..and insuch a case the car would jerk forward when trying to start

As for the XTrail gearbox problem; the check engine and master light can come on..but the symptoms are a little bit different. Usually what happens is that the engine will rev and the transmission will hesitate to make the car move (like a clutch slipping) or you will just feel the engine power surge but car doesn't move for a while or feels like it is stuck on to a brick wall.

Now can this happen because of the transmission, yes..there always is a chance.

As for your transmission swap earlier, I would say give them the beenfit of the doubt and get a proper diagnosis before jumping to conclusions. Now, if this boils down to the gearbox going bad, you cannot necessarily blame Ster**ing either. Most of these warranty replacements are done using used parts from Japan, so who knows, maybe the used gearbox they put just went bad itself (and no there is no way for anyone apart from the person taking out the part from the actual donor car to know how much the gearbox has been used for, even then there is no way for anyone to know what the condition of the gearbox was anyway).