Possibly another cvt on the way out? Update: replaced under warranty

I just took a car for a test drive after a new driver got put into it. Said it made a whinning noise and got pretty loud in o/d... Sure enough it sounds like the cvt screaming away. I checked the fluid when I got back and it looked black on the stick. Car is a 15' with 89k kms. It's going to the dealership this morning. I'll post back what happens. I kinda wanna see if it's the thrust washer craping out but it gets louder when the secondary gear kicks in.

I expect the car to sit there for at least a day before they look at it. Then say the cvt is screwed cause the fluid is toast. We haven't had to do any warranty claims other than a wheel bearing. Hope this isn't a hastle. Cvt fluid was replaced a month ago.

Thanks for the alert.

Subscribed for updates.

Update. Car hasn't moved from where I parked it.

I finally got a response from the service guy...
Apparently the dealer acknowledges there is a noise coming from the transmission. BUT because it's a fleet vehicle they have to get approval from "head office". And they'll likely want our service records for the car too. They'll let us know in a few days what they decide to do so now we are down one car.
When we bought these things we were told we have the same warranty as everyone else even though they are fleet vehicles. From what I recall, Mitsubishi does not even mention replacing cvt fluid in the owners manual. I see a fight on our hands.

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When we bought these things we were told we have the same warranty as everyone else

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Who did the buying? Verbal or written? (I'm guessing verbal.)

If you bought these all through the same dealer, you'd think they'd be eager to keep you guys happy, not to piss you off.

Make sure you let them know you're not happy with that response. Squeaky CVT gets the grease!

Someone other than myself did the buying. I don't know all the details but I assume there isn't anything saying a company vehicle has no warranty. I think it's just a case of a dingus service department (Glorified secretary's/administrative assistant)not realizing we bought a lot of cars over the last few years from this one place. I'm not sure if the secretary can tell where the vehicles were purchased? I would think they'd have the ability to see that, though every time I go there they have a hard time finding us in their system.....I imagine the manager will be involved shortly.

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Originally Posted by Fummins

...And they'll likely want our service records for the car too.
...From what I recall, Mitsubishi does not even mention replacing cvt fluid in the owners manual.

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It's not very clear...is it?

The service manual just says this...

Attachment 11823


If you search the web for 2015 mitsubishi warranty and maintenance manual you will find the maintenance schedules. I have no idea if this is only for certain markets. Here's a page from it. Schedule 1 is for severe-duty "harsh" conditions...

Attachment 11822

I don't see anything mentioning CVTs. I assume they are grouping them with traditional automatic transmissions.

Yes it is very vague. But if you look at the regular service (which seems to cover every Mitsubishi model apparently) there is zero mention of changing the transmission fluid. It says in my manual that different models may require different intervals but it doesn't specify what that means.
I'm still hoping this isn't going to be a problem. Otherwise I see us going with a spark :concern:I'd really like to see if it's the same failure as the first 2 we've had which had much higher mileage. This car still drives fine but makes a noise when you're on the throttle and gets very loud above 60kph/40mph. The other 2 were pretty hooped and had to be towed.

Still no update from our dealership. The general manager of the stealership was looking into it a few days ago.....I'm guessing they're trying to weasel out covering it under warranty.

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Originally Posted by Fummins

Still no update from our dealership. The general manager of the stealership was looking into it a few days ago.....I'm guessing they're trying to weasel out covering it under warranty.

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I would be shocked it they dont cover it under warranty. You are a fleet buyer buying multiple cars. They should be shining your shoes when you walk in the door.

If you get a "No" make sure you ask to speak to the owner of the dealership. It would be foolish of them to deny the repair and lose a lifetime worth of business.

It's been a week since I dropped it off and still nothing has happened. When we had a spark the dealer didn't hesitate to cover the transmission, and the second transmission and even covered the third one as well all without any hassle.

If they decide to deny the warranty coverage would it be Mitsubishi Corporate that is saying No or would it be the Dealership that is saying No?

Mitsubishi's reimbursement for the job may not be high enough for the dealer. They're probably still deciding if they want to fix it or not. Well the Spark has had many reports of bad transmissions right? So it would be labeled almost as a recall if it affects too many cars. They're probably trying to single yours out as a bad egg, or find any evidence that its your fault.

Dealers probably don't disassemble CVTs for diagnosis unless specifically instructed by the Tech Line (with Mitsubishi paying for the labor time). So when a CVT fails, it may be a component replacement in most cases at this point...remove the old CVT and install new one. Problem fixed.

The only problem is that is the dealer cost of a CVT is close to $4,000. :eek: So a dealer isn't going to do anything until the corporate office agrees to cover the repair.

Attachment 11833

Bad components like this are supposed to make their way back to the manufacturer so they can be disassembled and studied to figure out why they failed. Someone I know indirectly works for Honda as a mechanical engineer. One of his jobs is that he disassembles failed automatic transmissions to figure out why they failed.

A transaxle replacement this expensive may exceed the value of a Mirage before it's 4 years old. :(

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Originally Posted by fc321

If they decide to deny the warranty coverage would it be Mitsubishi Corporate that is saying No or would it be the Dealership that is saying No?

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If they deny it, I'm going to say that's its Mitsubishi's decision but this greasy dealership surely has the ability to make a judgement call and likely could have just had it covered without making a big deal and dicking us around. Maybe this dealer doesn't like the fact that they're losing so much business by us not letting them touch our cars? Whatever their reason, they're handling this situation like a bunch of retards.

I hope my CVT doesn't fail. That price is horrendous.

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Originally Posted by Fummins

If they deny it, I'm going to say that's its Mitsubishi's decision but this greasy dealership surely has the ability to make a judgement call and likely could have just had it covered without making a big deal and dicking us around. Maybe this dealer doesn't like the fact that they're losing so much business by us not letting them touch our cars? Whatever their reason, they're handling this situation like a bunch of retards.

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I think that dealers make most of their money from the service department, so you avoiding the service department shows that you're not actually profitable even though you might have bought a few cars there. I always have said that educated people always spend less or get a higher product for the same dollar used. People who don't know about cars will be profitable while people who change their own oil won't be.

It took me a few reads to get what your last sentence meant. Thought you meant being profitable personally not to the dealer. But, if I knew less about cars I'd probably have something newer that cost far less fix when it broke lol

I'm sure they dealers profit a lot from the service side, charge $100-120/hr pay a mechanic $30-40/hr, good profit margin especially when the tech gets paid piece work and the 3hr book time job takes 5hrs to complete because of broken exhaust studs or ......

Got the car back finally. They did put a new cvt in it after dicking around for a while.

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Originally Posted by fc321

I would be shocked it they dont cover it under warranty. They should be shining your shoes when you walk in the door.

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They don't care about customer service at this dealership. We only use them cause they're close by. There are 2 other Mitsu dealers in town that are probably better to deal with. They can't be any worse.

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Originally Posted by Top_Fuel

Dealers probably don't disassemble CVTs for diagnosis unless specifically instructed by the Tech Line (with Mitsubishi paying for the labor time). So when a CVT fails, it may be a component replacement in most cases at this point...remove the old CVT and install new one. Problem fixed.


Bad components like this are supposed to make their way back to the manufacturer so they can be disassembled and studied to figure out why they failed. Someone I know indirectly works for Honda as a mechanical engineer. One of his jobs is that he disassembles failed automatic transmissions to figure out why they failed.

A transaxle replacement this expensive may exceed the value of a Mirage before it's 4 years old. :(

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You're correct. It looks like they just called the tech line did a few test's, sent in some pics of the oil pan then eventually decided they'll replace it under warranty. I need a job like that, very little thinking involved for those dealership mechanics, just follow a flow chart and call a help line.

Glad you got a resolution. Thanks for the update.

After having disassembled a couple of these CVTs yourself, do you have any opinion as to why some of them seem to have failed prematurely?

The next time you have a CVT fail, it might be interesting to get an analysis of the transmission fluid. Blackstone Labs does transmission fluid analysis in addition to oil analysis.

I would have liked to seen what went wrong this time. This car was a little different than the first 2 failures we had. This one drove fine but made a howling/whining noise almost like a loud rear diff that's ready to pile up, unlike the other cars which just started having major driveability problems out of the blue. The noise in this car got louder under load and especially loud when the cvt shifted around 60kph,40mph). I'm not smart enough to say for sure but this cvt was probably repairable easily enough. The car still drove fine it was just noisy. Maybe the input shaft bearing going like the other cars? If only they voided the warranty I would have torn it apart :(

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Originally Posted by Fummins

Got the car back finally. They did put a new cvt in it after dicking around for a while.


They don't care about customer service at this dealership. We only use them cause they're close by. There are 2 other Mitsu dealers in town that are probably better to deal with. They can't be any worse.



You're correct. It looks like they just called the tech line did a few test's, sent in some pics of the oil pan then eventually decided they'll replace it under warranty. I need a job like that, very little thinking involved for those dealership mechanics, just follow a flow chart and call a help line.

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I work at Mitsubishi dealer. Fleet vehicles are not supposed to have a warranty. You do have a maintenance schedule trans service is part of it. Fleet is under severe service schedule. Most dealerships have no issue doing warranty jobs. Dealerships dont pay for the warranty work they get paid by Mitsubishi. The service department doesn't make the money for the dealership, selling cars does. The mechanics probably arent making $30-40 an hour probably more like $20 depending on location. When a warranty job over $1000 gets submitted we MUST get approval from tech-line and our district rep before repair, even if its a rod sticking out of the block and you know it needs an engine. This can take days and its a headache for the techs too. I personally have no issue doing any warranty job as long as the owner has done their maintenance, sometimes even if they haven't Mitsubishi will still cover it. They're fairly lenient.
Please keep calm and appreciate your service department, they're not trying to take advantage of you. they're most likely the ones being taken advantage of.

Also who's doing your cvt service? We do see cvt failures but they're mostly all outlander sports, and probably the most reliable cvt out of any make right now. Are you sure whoever is servicing your fleet is using mistubishi cvt fj-4 the fluid that should be getting put in the transmission.

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Originally Posted by wilbur

I work at Mitsubishi dealer. Fleet vehicles are not supposed to have a warranty. You do have a maintenance schedule trans service is part of it. Fleet is under severe service schedule. Most dealerships have no issue doing warranty jobs. Dealerships dont pay for the warranty work they get paid by Mitsubishi. The service department doesn't make the money for the dealership, selling cars does. The mechanics probably arent making $30-40 an hour probably more like $20 depending on location. When a warranty job over $1000 gets submitted we MUST get approval from tech-line and our district rep before repair, even if its a rod sticking out of the block and you know it needs an engine. This can take days and its a headache for the techs too. I personally have no issue doing any warranty job as long as the owner has done their maintenance, sometimes even if they haven't Mitsubishi will still cover it. They're fairly lenient.
Please keep calm and appreciate your service department, they're not trying to take advantage of you. they're most likely the ones being taken advantage of.

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Fleet vehicles aren't supposed to have warranty? Thanks for the heads up. If thats the case we'll be selling all our cars now that I know that.

I realize that Mitsubishi pays the dealership for warranty work. I have known that for many moons....

I'm in Canada? The Canadian dollar is worth less than the 'merican. So yeah, cost's of everything aren't going to be the same here as they are there. No Tech would work in this province for under $30/hr. (unless they owed a ton of pecker pension and were working under the table) Min wage here is going up to $15/hr in a few months.

The service department at our Mitsubishi Dealership leaves much to be desired. I dread dealing with them. They are are glorified secretaries. I had an issue with a new nissan and it was a totally different experience. It was a good one that was not frustrating at all.

For cvt service I just pour some old type F atf I found on the shelf in it. It works don't it?

The car was fixed over a month ago.

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Originally Posted by Fummins

For cvt service I just pour some old type F atf I found on the shelf in it. It works don't it?

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I'm glad I know you're joking!

Do they even make Type F any more?

I worked at a Jiffy Lube in about 1985. We used to change ATF and everything was Dexron II or Type F. We recommended fluid and filter changes at 20k miles, and we saw what that old ATF looked and SMELLED like after 40-50k miles. I really have trouble adjusting to the modern trend of "magical" ATF that doesn't even have a specified factory change interval.

Yeah, you got me. The cvt fluid for these thing is pretty rank right out of the bottle. Plus it'll give you cancer if you live in California.

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Originally Posted by Fummins

Fleet vehicles aren't supposed to have warranty? Thanks for the heads up. If thats the case we'll be selling all our cars now that I know that.

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I don't think any manufacture covers fleet vehicles under warranty. Probably just cover it because your a buyer but if they wanted to be idiots I think they could refuse. I guess you could go back to chevy if you wanted an all around worse vehicle, I would still stick with Mitsubishi for reliability and cost. I'm really not sure whats up with your cvts maybe its the temperature. I've only seen 2 mirage cvt failures since they came out. At least you didn't get a bunch of versas..

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FLEET SELECTION

Your choice of vehicles spans the subcompact, compact and SUV market segments. Better still, they’re backed by our best-in-class warranty.

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From: https://www.mitsubishi-motors.ca/en/fleet/

That's from the Canadian site. Not sure about the U.S.

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Originally Posted by wilbur

...I've only seen 2 mirage cvt failures since they came out.

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That's good to know. Replacing a CVT (out of warranty) would be a financial nightmare for most consumers.

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Originally Posted by Top_Fuel

That's good to know. Replacing a CVT (out of warranty) would be a financial nightmare for most consumers.

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How hard would it be to replace a CVT transmission on a Mirage with one from a salvage yard? I've changed out transmissions before. On the Mirage it doesn't look very hard but then again i haven't done one and hope i'll never have to. I seen them pretty cheap at local salvage yards.

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Originally Posted by FloridaG4

How hard would it be to replace a CVT transmission on a Mirage with one from a salvage yard?

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It's probably not that bad. But for the average person who isn't doing their own work, a CVT replacement can easily exceed the entire value of the car if you are relying on the dealer.

The good/bad news is that a Mirage is totaled if it hits almost anything...so salvage yards should be full of low-mile examples. I guess that's good for those of us who don't end up wrecking them. :)

Here's one just waiting for someone to grab and put on a shelf for future use...

Attachment 12137

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Originally Posted by wilbur

I don't think any manufacture covers fleet vehicles under warranty. Probably just cover it because your a buyer but if they wanted to be idiots I think they could refuse. I guess you could go back to chevy if you wanted an all around worse vehicle, I would still stick with Mitsubishi for reliability and cost. I'm really not sure whats up with your cvts maybe its the temperature. I've only seen 2 mirage cvt failures since they came out. At least you didn't get a bunch of versas..

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We have a bunch of Nissan commercial vans. They honor the warranty as well. If we follow the extreme maintenance schedule. I can't say I know of any manufacture that wouldn't cover warranty for fleet vehicles. Wonder why dealerships have fleet departments then? We must be special cause we even managed to get warranty repairs on a forklift!

With the 2 failures you've seen do you know what happened to them or did the just replace them and send back to Mitsubishi? 2 of mine had a thrust washer on the input shaft housing fail. Not sure about temurature, on died in summer I think and the other on a nice day in the winter. The third one just made a noise but still worked fine.

We only every had one Chev car that I've seen here, it was a pos 14 spark. Got rid of because it spent more time getting WARRANTY REPAIRS than it did being used on the road. The spark had the same jatco cvt as the Mirage, I wouldn't doubt if the versa does too.
The other Gm's I work on lasted over 400k before the trans piled up(6l80e). Another has over 650k kms/400k miles on the original engine(4.8l). Still runs great.

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Originally Posted by FloridaG4

How hard would it be to replace a CVT transmission on a Mirage with one from a salvage yard? I've changed out transmissions before. On the Mirage it doesn't look very hard but then again i haven't done one and hope i'll never have to. I seen them pretty cheap at local salvage yards.

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I wouldn't hesitate to buy a used one. They are easy to replace, no different than any fwd automatic. Drain the pan, pull the axles,pull the starter, shifter cable, all the speed sensors, round wiring plug for the valvebody near the dipstick tube(they suck to disconnect), undo the torque converter bolts, drain the rad, disconnect the cvt cooler hoses, support the engine, undo the lower trans mount,bellhousing bolts, upper trans mount mount. I pulled the subframe as well, it isn't necessary to do that though but made it easier to get to some of the bolts and drop the trans straight down.

If you buy one from a wreck make sure the case isn't cracked before you pick it up or install it, or atleast get the yard to verify it isn't damaged especially at the rearmost part of the case. The lower dogbone mount bends like a straw in a front end collision and the trans will push into the rack and pinion cracking it.

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Originally Posted by Fummins

With the 2 failures you've seen do you know what happened to them or did the just replace them and send back to Mitsubishi? 2 of mine had a thrust washer on the input shaft housing fail. Not sure about temurature, on died in summer I think and the other on a nice day in the winter. The third one just made a noise but still worked fine.

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Mistubishi doesnt want us inside them at all for some reason. Ive torn one down and the primary pulley was badly blued with codes in the tcm about primary pressure control I think it was around 60-70k miles no service history and the pickup was very restricted.
If i have any mitsubishi come in with a whining noise from the cvt and no service history (even if there is a service history) we always try changing the filter/pickup under the oil pan and fresh cvtfj4 first as that actually fixes it about half the time.

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Originally Posted by wilbur

Mistubishi doesnt want us inside them at all for some reason. Ive torn one down and the primary pulley was badly blued with codes in the tcm about primary pressure control I think it was around 60-70k miles no service history and the pickup was very restricted.
If i have any mitsubishi come in with a whining noise from the cvt and no service history (even if there is a service history) we always try changing the filter/pickup under the oil pan and fresh cvtfj4 first as that actually fixes it about half the time.

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That's one way to get the customer back on the road and out the door and hope it doesn't completely crap out before warranty is up lol What were the filters plugged with Chunks o' metal or sludge?

The noise our last cvt made varied depending on output shaft speed. You could hear the cvt speed change as it shifted. The other 2 made no noise.

The noise is typically the pump getting air in it or creating a vacuum. The screen gets clogged from debris from normal wear and the cvt fluid breaking down. When the screen starts getting clogged we see the cvt getting warmer than normal and wearing out the oil quicker. This is by no means a way to just get the customer out the door, I haven't had one come back yet after this issue if they stayed on top of their cvt services after that. The way I see it they're lucky enough that their late preventative maintenance didn't cost them a transmission.
It wasn't an attack when I asked about what fluid you used, I've seen a few failed cvts already with red fluid (atf) not specifically mirages.

I don't think the noise I heard was the oil pump, but anything's possible. The screen filter(wire mesh one in the oil pan) on the 2 I tore down had chunks oh input shaft bearing in them plugging them up. I considered just replacing the filter at first but it was screwed.

If I heard a pump sucking air I'd be concerned it's not being lubricated properly and it's life is being shortened. If caught early great but I know too many people who don't say something is wrong or making a noise til it quits moving all together or wait til it's -30...

All is good, I've had a customer accidentally put power steering fluid in his brake reservoir. That was a costly mistake. Had an apprentice do it to his own vehicle too. Never let him live that one down to this day :encouragement:

Are you saying the Outlander Sport has the least reliable JATCO CVT out of the Eclipse, Outlander, and Mirage? Do you see less Mirages in the shop than the SUVs? Is the little CVT7 the least or most reliable that youve seen?

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Originally Posted by Dirk Diggler

Are you saying the Outlander Sport has the least reliable JATCO CVT out of the Eclipse, Outlander, and Mirage? Do you see less Mirages in the shop than the SUVs? Is the little CVT7 the least or most reliable that youve seen?

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Are you directing your question to Fummins? Fummins maintains a fleet of delivery vehicles which includes the Mirage. I'm pretty sure he doesn't work on other Mitsubishi models.

I think he's asking Wilbur. He works at a mitsu dealer. I believe him cause he said he said mfgs don't usually offer warranty for fleet customers. He definitely works at a Mitsu dealer lol