As for the caps, I was thinking the same thing myself, and even asked the dealer if he had already done it on any GT-R and he said they had not (and they have also not replaced any transmissions on the 12-14 cars they service, many of which are track driven, with at least one at 800 HP I think). Then I asked if he would do it for a price and he said he would only do it if the indicated codes came up. I thought the parts were on a restricted list? Sure looks like cheap insurance, but also wondering if only certain transmissions that were made slightly out of tolerance need them. From a logical point of view, if that update was going to save Nissan a ton of money in warranty replacement of transmissions, you think they would just choose to put those 50 cent clips in and pay for the short time required to install them compared to having to pull out the transmission, ship it back, ship a new one to dealer and install it. So not certain it is such a commonly required update. Haven't heard of many people getting it done with or without the relevant codes detected.
According to the side comments from some rebuilders (Dodson amongst), they began seeing these clips from the factory in 2010. Installed stock. I wonder the exact same things, if this helps the transmission "get it right" why not do ALL of them?
However, I suspect that some accountant has been involved here. "Lessee, five year powertrain warranty over time....hmmm. Predicted failure rate.... click click click. Replacing transmission - listed cost $18,000, actual cost ........, vs. two hours tech time for every GT-R produced plus bad publicity over transmission recall and ACTUALLY admitting something was wrong from the get go... click click clik.. Ah. Produce the clips. Do the ones that have problems before failure, and start installing them on the production line, but don't issue a recall"
While paranoid, I suspect this could have happened. Since they are now being seen from the factory, if I can get them and successfully install, I'll darn sure give it a try. If not, both Dodson and WillAll have produced solutions for the problem. While I know everybody thinks this is overkill, I now have 22,000 miles on my 2009, many of them track miles. I'm old enough to remember when rebuilding a transmission at 50,000 miles was COMMON, even if not abused. While I haven't really abused my transmission, track is most certainly harder on them than street. I had to rebuild the trannys on both my 1967 Ford Fairlane and 1979 Ford Mustang before 100,000 miles. For a car that has done more high performance miles than both of those added up (and has more power than both of them added up, and throw in both my 1992 Honda Civic and 1996 Honda Civic), then a bulletproof rebuild isn't way out of line, I think.
But I sure would hope that I could put it off for a while with some $0.50 clips.
Shawn
