So I've had bad luck with Nissan slave clylinders.

On my 00 Maxima the pedal lost feel about two miles from my house with no warning. I limped it home with about five shifts and it was done. No pressure at all and the pedal was on the floor. Replaced the slave and it was fine.

On my 04 Maxima it would lose pressure on occasion - seemed like it would happen more often when it was hot out. For a couple of years I'd lost about 80% of the pressure - clutch would only come off the ground a few inches and would be very soft. If I pumped it up real quickly or drove it enough, the constant use would get it back to normal. I was driving home from work one day and it went completely dead. Pulled over on the highway and called a tow truck. No matter how much I screwed with it the pedal was dead. As the tow truck was pulling up an hour later, it was 100% back to normal! I said **** it, went though with the tow, and put a new slave in it even though the shop couldn't find anything wrong. No problems afterwards.

So my new to me G35 had similar issues the first week I bought it. Had it checked out immediately and no problems were found. It probably occured three times within the first month of ownership.

Eight months later - last week - I was pulling it in the garage and it had low pressure. Pumped the pedal ten times and it was fine. Went to work the next morning and it had minimal pressure - by the time I was halfway there it was fine.

Figured I'd call the stealership since the std warranty is up on a month and 5K. My appointment was today and I was estatic to wake up to the clutch pedal being weak. I tried to make minimal shifts on the way to the stealer to avoid "fixing it".

Sure enough, its fine about five minutes before I get there. Service advisor is super cool and said they'd keep it overnight to see if it happens again.

Anybody have a similar story? Certainly understand that they can't replace it if it they can't duplicate it, but pretty frustrating.

 

there was a voluntary recall on the slave cylinder. check the dealer to see if it was done on your already. If not, you are in luck. There have been reports of failures even after it was replaced though.

 

IIRC that was on the 07, correct? I've got an 08.

 

^ yep recall was only for the 07s... and most 08 owners have not had this issue, and after the recall i too have had NO issues whatsoever for over 50k miles on the new slave cylinder. While nissan slave cyl in past have been weak (still are a bit weak with aftermarket kits) they are much improved from 08 onwards and should be fine with stock clutch even with aggressive drivers. Without any offense, considering ur problem history imo it might have something to do with the way your drive or perhaps the lack of maintaince of the clutch fluid.

I dont know if either of these two things could be an issue but should be something you should look into, or it just could be that you are very unlucky to always get the car with a bad slave cyl and hoepfully dealer will replace it under warranty and fix your problems for good

 

I'd say your theory of my bad driving could be on to something, but I started to have the problem when I just got the car and it had 24k on the clock. My 00 had 125 and gave no warning....so I would assume one would expect that type of failure. The 04 was pretty new though....don't recall the mileage when they problem started but it wasn't that old.

Perhaps a good bleeding is in order?

 

^ that cant hurt and doing that once a year can really help, if you look at your clutch fluids condition/color after ~15k you will see why, also when you have this done use DOT4 which has a higher boiling point and can be helpful in stop and go traffic where you are constantly clutching in and out.

Let us know what the dealer says but now that you say that you got the car with 24k it could be part of the reason as the last owner might have unknowingly abused the clutch a bit by riding the clutch pedal along with not maintaining the fluids condition.