2008 Nissan Altima

I have some interesting news for you but first you have to do something for me. Is it a deal? Your part of the deal is simple, take your Altima into a Nissan dealer and have them do a complete diagnostic on the transmission with an OBD-II scanner. That’s it and it plays into the my part of the deal. It is to tell you that I don’t think you have to replace the entire transmission.

The transmission of the 2008 Altima, like most fairly late-model vehicles, is primarily electronic with mechanical parts. The mechanical parts are those you need to go from gear to gear and keep rolling. The electronics control everything else.

From the sound of your issue, I think there’s a funky temperature sensor somewhere in that is sending poor information to the transmission control module. The overtemperature info it is receiving is making the control module return a shutdown code because of overheating.

With that said, the diagnostic that I asked you to have run should indicate the proper sensors — there may be more than one — to have replaced.

I don’t think you have to have the transmission replaced at all. You can if you would like to invest $3,400 or so, but you would be wasting your money. Have your technician track down the offending sensor packs and have them replaced. You will save yourself thousands as each sensor pack is about $400 with parts and labor to replace.

Since I think it’s only limited to one sensor pack, perhaps two, I believe you will save yourself on the order of $2,600. That’s enough for you to buy me an ice cream cone. I like chocolate chip, thanks!