G37beijing:

Glad to hear that. I had mine done in January. I can't say that other than better coasting stops that it is any better. In fact, I find in traffic 30-20 mph - just today again - that I get those jerky gear shifts from the Torque Converter in D or DS mode. and hitting the brakes for a car in front of me to make a turn, then stepping on the gas right after that, BINGO: hestitation, noticeable hesitation.

 

@Almatti: Yeah, I get that same hesitation, even after HT tune. It's unfortunate

 

I've recently got the TSB update on Friday 25th.
Dealer updated my TCM and ECM. The car drove smoother now but not a complete fix. Can't complain though since it's much better than before.

 

Almatti:

You're right. The hesitation is definitely there. But maybe it's because my 7AT was so erratic before the reflash that I feel it's improved dramatically after. I bought my car at the end of 2008 and have never done any update. When ITB09-032 was out, I went to the dealer and requested for it. To my dismay they said it was not applicable for cars sold in China.

What I'm getting at is that we all come from different driving styles and different TCM versions. Some of us may feel a significant improvement while other may not. For my car, I just feel it behaves much better although far from perfect.

 

sorry to hijack this thread.

wow you are from china? nicee! are there alot of infinitis in china? are they considered luxury like benz and beamz?

 

Not a whole lot of Infinitis in China. There are more FXs than Gs. Although they are considered luxury cars, most people would rather buy a Beamer, Audi or Mercedes for the same money just for brand recognition. I personally prefer Japanese cars in China because they are more tolerant toward poor road conditions, dusty air and sub-par fuel in China. Beamers and Mercedes still tend to have many more problems than Infiniti and Lexus.

Other than the quirkiness of the 7AT, I have not had a single problem with my G since Dec 2008. Love it.

 

Today, I heard from Infiniti of America concerning the emails I submitted complaining about the quirkiness of this 7 AT in my 2010 G37X. The rep is to contact the Service Manager of the dealership, has all of records from dealership, the number of times i have brought it in to log my complaints about the driveability of this transmission. In addition, she is going to consult with Infiniti's engineers to see if something other than the TSB is coming to address this. She didn't say it, but I detected from our conservation that this IS a problem. I told her to check the infiniti Forums, see and read the numerous complaints (there are other than MyG37.com forums).

I will try to keep you guys posted if anything comes of this. I also told her that the origianl response from the dealer was: "It is what it is"....

 

awsome...still holding back on getting the reflash.

 

Well I just did the pedal reset on my wifes G37X Sedan Moday night and so far so good. But we'll see, I'm sure the gear hunting and jerking back and forth at 30-40 MPH will come back, I mean the car shifts into 5th gear at like 35 MPH. :O

 

Hope they are aware if they don't get this straighten out, they'll loose a lot of loyal return customers.

 

Does anyone know how many "upgrades" were done to the 5AT before it became as good as it is/was?

Im just curious if Nissan/Infiniti is working in baby steps to perfect the 7AT the same way.

 

Nothing is being upgraded. The engine has limited low-end torque (relative to expectations of a 330 hp car). You have seven gears, fairly closely spaced. No amount of tweaking the shift programming or throttle mapping can solve basic physics.

A normal gear ratio pattern that had the engine turning 1800 rpm at 75 mph would solve a lot of the problems because the gears would be farther apart and less hunting would occur. But then the throttle response would suck; the car would feel like a Corolla; and a downshift would be required to accelerate at anything faster than a snail's pace. Not an option for a "sport sedan." And so on and so on. All the options that could make the car behave in more "normal" manner were purposely not chosen because it is sport oriented. We could have the same conversations about why is the ride over potholes and frost heaves not as compliant as in an Altima?

The only difference is that consumers are such mindless suckers that we all gravitate to the G because it has the same or better 0-60 time as a BMW, but we don't want to put up with what's required to have that (poor fuel economy). So the addition of the 7 speed was intended to let us have our cake and eat it, too. Except we don't have 300 lbs.-ft. of torque at 1500 rpm, so they did a bunch of gymnastics to maintain the competitve performance when the engine is not really competitve.

As I am sure you know, with huge amounts of low-end torque, you can get away with driving in a higher gear and require many fewer shifts and even can get away with fewer gears. We have an F1 style engine that would work better with 8 or 9 speeds than 7. But if we were driving an F1 car, we wouldn't be expecting Buick automatic transmission behaviour.

I am sorry to all those who think there is a serious problem with the tranny, but the more I read and experience, the more I am convinced it is the result of the combination of "artifical" performance boosting engineering like ridiculously non-linear throttle mapping (which screws up the transmission shift logic) with the inherent design of the gear ratios. Add in impatient, unnecessarily heavy-footed drivers (of which I bet we are higher than average per cent on here) and you have a bad recipe.

The throttle map changes in the latest flash should help, but it won't fundamentally alter the characteristics of the 3.7 engine and 7-speed tranny combo. Personally, I think they have done a good job of compromising performance versus other criteria given the limitations of the engine. Drive more smoothly if you don't want the reflash and you'll get the same result. If that's not good enough, better go for a different vehicle.

P.S., I know a bunch of folks came from the 5 speed and prefer it. Just so you see how everything is a compromise, I did NOT get a G35 latest generation in 2008 for one and only one reason--because of the 5 speed and it's ridiculously short gearing, which shows up on the highway in particular. Why do I need 300 hp to rev at 3300-3500 rpm at highway speeds? I can get a little buzz box to do that. Why is the gearing so short? Just to maintain +/- 0.1 seconds 0-60 with the BMW 335. I loved the car otherwise, so when the '09 not only fixed the gearing problem with the 7 speed, but also boosted the engine, I made my decision. The 3.7 is still marginal in terms of torque, though. But have they maximized the use of it and masked it's weaknesses pretty well? Yes. I think some people are not taking into account the fundamental design weaknesses of the engine (too little torque in favour of being able to advertise an almost meaningless HP number) and putting all the blame on the tranny. Does the same tranny and gear set and almost identical final drive in the high torque FX50 have these problems?

 

Marc,

I agree with most of what you said. They all make sense. But I think 7AT itself is just a marketing joke which is designed to "keep up" with Lexus/MB's 8sp. All they need to do is to keep the same 5AT, then slap the 6th gear for high way cruising. I think most of us would be much more happy.

I heard Acura has just added the 6th gear to their TL, so I'll probably test drive the refreshed TL which by the way looks tons better than before but still not good enough. So I'll wait for the next gen TL

To be honest, I am starting to get tired of my G after 2 years with all the road noise, soft paint. The transmission is not a big deal to me because I do mostly highway driving and am willing to use those paddle shifters if I need it to downshift quickly.

 

I agree with some of the points, but to me the issue is mostly not torque related....if you watch the tach while the "lag" is occurring, the transmission looks "confused". The lag seems to be caused by it not knowing it needs to downshift now, and not wait a second or two. To me, thats a software issue........even if there is a lack of low end torque, there should be a way to program around it.

The shifting should be based at least somewhat on load and accelerator position, so when the car is under load at that RPM and the gas pedal is pressed a certain amount, it should downshift........shouldnt make any difference the amount of torque the engine is putting out.

 

There were no updates for the 5AT on the 08 G37, the closest thing would be the ECU update for the 500RPM blip on braking. Can't say how many under the G35.