I've had five Nissans through the years. The ex-wife's first car we bought after we got married was a new '91 Sentra and we replaced it with a '94 Altima before she also decided she wanted an SUV led to subsequent '95, '98 & '02 Grand Cherokee purchases. Never a problem out of either Nissan, although I think the Sentra only had 34k miles on it when we traded it and the Altima didn't even have 20k.

I had an old late '80s Sentra Wagon I used for business from '94 till '01. The thing had like 140k miles on it when I bought it and almost 300k on it when I sold it. The thing absolutely ate water pumps, I couldn't get more than 30k out of one but other than that and normal maintenance, it never had a major problem.

Bought a '94 Nissan King Cab 4x4 new but only had it a year. I had a Ford diesel I was using to tow my bass boat to tournaments which started $300 me to death and I sold it. The Nissan couldn't cut it pulling a 3000# boat, plus gear and all so I traded it in on a full size 4x4.

I have a good buddy with a '96 Pathfinder that's been thru hell, he's been in about five accidents with it, none major, but the thing looks like crap. He did have the tranny go with about 120k on it, but other than that it's been pretty solid and has well over 200k miles on it now.

As far as the transmissions going on 1500 trucks, that pretty much went bye-bye when the 46re/rh was scrapped in favor of the 45rfe and 545rfe. Dodge trucks were always known as having the best V8s on the planet mated to the worst transmissons, but these new transmissions are at least on par with 1/2 ton truck trannies in GMs and Fords.

Do your maintenance on schedule and you shouldn't have any major problems...

 

Now this is what I like to hear, I heard the same thing about engine tranny pairing. That bit if info made me very worried. Great to hear that this issue has been addressed with a change. How long has dodge been using the 45rfe and 545rfe trannies?

 

and to piggy back on his q...what is the reliability history of the 45RFE & 545RFE tranny?

Note: so far I have 2,500 miles on my Durango, I love the transmission and its buttery smooth shifting behavior!!!

 

 

Good thing Dodge's tranny are not made in China....talked about the new Ford Mustangs problems with their MT-82 manual transmission!

 

The 45rfe made it's debut in the Grand Cherokee in 1999, the first transmission completely designed by Daimler (Mercedes) and by '02 it was used with all Chrysler 4.7 V8 engines. The 5.2 & 5.9 continued to get the 46re/rh line.
With the introduction of the Hemi in '03 a software change was implemented giving the transmission in essence a 2nd overdrive gear and it became the 545rfe. Incidentally, any 45rfe transmission can be made into a 545rfe with a simple flash with the StarScan tool, despite what the dealer may tell you.

Although I'm not a mechanic by trade, I have worked in performance shops from time to time and do a little overflow work at a local 4x4 shop when they get swamped, so I'm around these things a good bit and can tell you that you just don't see the issues with these transmissions that the preceding ones had. Now granted, trannies fail, so do Ford/GM/Toyota/etc. from time to time.
My only complaint with this transmission is there is a lot of parasitic drive train loss and you'll find that a you'll lose a good 25% of an engines HP on the way to the rear wheels when tested on a dyno. Industry average is more like 15-20%. The torque converter is the culprit here and if you are going to do any serious engine build-up it'd be a good idea to look at a solid, after-market torque converter...