I have a 2008 G35 Infiniti sedan with 27,000 miles. I was on the freeway when my car lost power, I had the gas pedal to the floor but the car would not exceed 5 mph. This was during rush hour traffic and I was in the fast lane and barley made it to the shoulder without getting hit. I brought it to the Infinity dealership who said I need to replace the valve body of the transmission which will cost $2000. Is this possible or does it sound like a recall issue? I thought Infiniti was a reliable car?

 

Go to an independent transmission shop. If you are a diy guy it is something you can do in your garage.

 

+1 ^^

... if you are out of warranty, get it fixed at an independent or at least a Nissan dealer, both are cheaper than the Infiniti dealer. Cheapest way is always DIY though.

 

WOW! You didn't even break in the car yet. 27k miles. i am guessing you don't have an elite warranty so i would go to another shop and get it fixed. Be a lot cheaper then the dealers.

 

Infiniti replaced the valve body on my 2008 under warranty. The said it's a common failure component on our cars as they have had issues with bad castings which cause the internal ports to clog up. The dealer I went to said they see a couple of these a month.

 

mine has now failed 3 times. My dealer claims they have never seen one failed. This is not a DIY as the valve body must be reprogrammed by a dealer. It is only 2.5 hours labor and if you took it to an indy they would have to tow it to a nissan/infiniti dealer to get it programmed and pay them 1 hour labor to do it. You are stuck going to a dealer. If you buy it online and pay the lower nissan labor rate infiniti will only cover the part for 12 months/ 12k miles warranty, but not warranty the labor and you will be forced to pay for that again. If you go to an infiniti dealer they will warranty parts and labor. Either way you also are going to have to pay for a bunch of $12/quart bottles of tranny fluid. I wish I woulda known these were a problem when I bought the car 3.5 years ago.

 

As an update to this, apparently a few months ago a new updated part # was released. I'm not sure what design updates were made or if it will fix this issue from happening. Neither the dealer or infiniti would tell me this information.

I decided to sell the car rather than be faced with a nearly 2k bill every 2 years. This decision was made, in part, because the brand new one failed AS SOON AS THEY PUT IT IN! They had to order ANOTHER valve body, which brings the total number that had failed in my car to 4. Here is the date/mileage of when each was installed

4/2007- 0 miles (car went into service)

12/2009- 47,000 miles (this replacement was covered under warranty & was done when the previous owner had it)

7/2011- 76,000 miles (this replacement was not covered under warranty & the part failed during the trip driving it home to Kansas from purchasing it in Chicago)

1/2015- 130,000 miles (2 went bad here & the new part # is substantially more expensive than the old)

Pretty ridiculous for a car that isn't even 8 years old to go through 4 valve bodies. I've never had a single other car have one go bad ever.