Kizashi Club

Driving home this morning. Check engine light came on and lost all power. Cruised home at 15 mph. I still have about a years worth of payments left on this car. I'll have it checked by my mechanic but I'm pretty sure it's the CVT. I only have about 130k miles. My favorite Suzuki but definitely the biggest lemon they ever built.

Oh no.
Not good buddy

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Sorry to say 130,000 mi is near average for the jf011e installed in the Kizashi. If codes are read, you will probably find a P0777 caused by low pressure. More than likely due to an exploded primary pulley. Time for trans replacement. Finding one with low enough miles is key. I have a few . Pm me if interested. The donor units primary can be modified to greatly extend its life expectancy for additional fee

Marcov71 wrote:Driving home this morning. Check engine light came on and lost all power. Cruised home at 15 mph. I still have about a years worth of payments left on this car. I'll have it checked by my mechanic but I'm pretty sure it's the CVT. I only have about 130k miles. My favorite Suzuki but definitely the biggest lemon they ever built.

The Kizashi isn't a lemon. The CVT is if anything but how often was it serviced? Not saying it's your fault, but I wouldn't trust a no-service claim of a component like a transmission.
Manual models will run long past their CVT brethren given the quality of the actual Suzuki-designed and built aspects of the Kizashi which did not include the CVT.

Any automatic transmission should be considered a likely failure point once it gets to 150K miles, CVTs have proven themselves to be weaker than normal automatics.

From my point of view, still having a year of payments due on a car with 130K miles is the bigger issue. Get in touch with old tech. He's somewhere in PA and can hook you up.

Let me rephrase that, Only Kizashi CVT is a lemon. Pretty sure that the manual is bullet proof. This is my fourth Suzuki and the only one that has failed me. At 130k. It should just be breaking in! Lol
I did reachnoutbto old tech. Need to find out exactly how far his shop is located. Problem might be that may be too far out in PA and how much it would cost to have car transported there.

So I got codes P0777 and P1818. We were able to clear them and car drove fine but the whining was still there. Code P1818 was trying to creep back in. Hoping my mechanic cab save this CVT. ANYONE familiar with the P1818 code?

Both codes are low pressure and coupled with whining noise, it points to a clogged screen. The debris is ,no doubt ,from a failing primary unit. If you want to squeeze a bit more life out of it you could try this. Drain fluid into a clean container. Pull pan and screen. Clean pick up screen with brake clean and compressed air. Reassemble and fill with your old fluid to try. Put 50 miles on it. If all is good you can clean screen again and refill with new. Personally I dont think that you will be able to trust it until replacement or repairing.

OT, so what causes whining when there is absolutely no debris in the screen? That was my situation prior to its first ever fluid change at 80k miles (3 drain/fills). Perfectly clean screen and magnets had smooth, metallic grey, goo (no bits or pieces at all). Now, at almost 10k on the 'new' fluid, a faint whine is becoming perceivable.

There is some degree of whining that is normal.If there is too much restriction ( sticky valve, ) or too much leakage on line pressure (worn valves ,pump or in this case most likely flow control valve). I know Jatco was trying to submerse the pick up screen with updated pan and screen for 2012 and then a shorter dipstick that raised the fluid level about 10mm I think. Maybe only 2013 got these. Ive only seen one. Lastly airiated fluid cased by to high or low level. Again, on yours its probably a flow control valve thats slightly worn. This thing is first and hardest hit by dirty fluid and eventually leads to other failures . They are cheap and improved aftermarket. $25 but require trans removal. You can safely try overfilling by 1/2 qt.