Jatco JF009E / JF020E

Jatco's small belt CVT for Nissan — in the Note and the Versa.

It is a true belt CVT, unlike the hybrid transaxles elsewhere in this catalogue that share the name: there is a steel push-belt between two variable pulleys, and the whole drive depends on hydraulic clamping pressure holding it.

So its failure sequence is the belt CVT's, and it is worth knowing in order: aged fluid loses clamping before it loses anything else, felt as a slip under acceleration with the engine rising and the car not; then the pulley surfaces glaze; then the belt marks them permanently. The first stage is a fluid service and the last is a replacement.

Nissan's NS-2 or NS-3 fluid is specific and the interval is real whatever the handbook implies — and on these small, inexpensive cars the fluid history is very often unknown, which is what decides whether the transmission is worth repairing.

Towing, sustained hills and stop-start traffic age it far faster than the odometer suggests, and these were sold into exactly that use.