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it will always slip. The manual indicated the 1-2 and 2-3 shifts are controlled by electric solenoid switches and should show on
Nissans Consult II.
Brake pads, rotors, drums, & linings
Steering gear, linkage & transfer gear, & axle & suspension parts
Drive shaft boots
Exhaust system
I have a feeling I could do this if I knew what I was looking for. Does the service manual detail exactly what to do? I called the dealership to find out how much the 7500 mile service "inspections" would cost, because I do the oil change, rotate the tires, & grease the propeller shaft my self. They told me the 7500 mile service is a package deal & it would cost more to only do the items I need... umm.... ok. Sounds like a bunch of crap to me. Anyway, let me know if you can help. Hopefully I'll get the service manual soon. Thanks a lot...
If you do your own maintenance, it's basically a good idea to familiarize yourself with the stuff that's under there, so that next time you service it yourself, you'll be able to spot abnormalities.
Lance
If you're looking for long mileage and good snow traction, go with the Michelin LTX M/S. I know several people in rural Wisconsin (45 miles to nearest big city and plenty of snow) that love these tires.
Just make sure you get some kind of lifetime rotation deal (lifetime balance would be good, too). With the Pathfinder, rotating the tires at every 3 or 4 thousand miles will make the tires last a LOT longer.
Before jumping in and turning on the A/C, open the rear hatch and allow the hot air to escape. It helps to open a few other doors as well. To help the rear passengers, if you have them, adjust the side vents partially closed. This allows more air to blow from the center vents. The right center vent is most of the problem since it isn't as large as the other vents because of styling.??
We did have our compressor replaced because it was making some noise. It didn't help/hurt the situation except for the noises. Many others in this forum have at least mentioned this topic.
Good luck,
Dano
During hot months I too have often been frustrated by the HUGE amount of hot are in that cavernous interior. It is the price we pay for driving an SUV instead of a car. Remember we are cooling at least twice as much space as a regular car.
Even though I purposely bought a light colored PF, it can still take forever to get that large interior cooled down. The same was true for my Ford Exploder too. Dark colors would only make it worse.
First I use every possible trick to minimize solar heat gain (shades, venting, etc). Then I usually drive for several minutes with all the windows open to flush the hot air out. Then it only takes about 15 minutes to reach normal 76F temps...
True it is an SUV but a better system can be installed by Nissan to make this less of a problem for a $30+ vehicle. For reference, take a look at a Chevy Tahoe or Ford Expedition. They are considerably larger and have rear vents that really make cooling better. Not something we wouldn't buy again though.
Dano
For reference, take a look at a Chevy Tahoe or Ford Expedition. They are considerably larger...
That's why they have to have the rear vents. They're LARGER. The Pathfinder is not a full-size SUV. The main limitation of cooling on modern A/C systems, especially in SUVs, is the refrigerant used. Long ago, the use of R-12 refrigerant was outlawed because of CFC emissions. R-134 took its place, but R-134 is much less efficient at cooling.
It's really tough for an A/C system to combat intense interior heat, especially when you consider interior volume, lots of windows to let sunlight heat up the surfaces, and dark exterior paint to absorb all that solar radiation.
Owner Notification Date: 9/11/2001
Number of Units Potentially Affected: 31,000
Component Description: STRUCTURE:HATCHBACK HINGE AND ATTACHMENTS
NHTSA Campaign Number: 01V282000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description of Recall Campaign:
Vehicle Description: Passenger vehicles. 2001 model year Nissan Pathfinder
vehicles manufactured from December 20, 2000, through June 8, 2001, and 2001
model year Infiniti QX4 vehicles manufacturer from January 8 to June 8, 2001.
Some of the brackets used to attach the two gas struts to the rear door (hatch)
may not have been made to specification. At high ambient temperature, the
increase in gas pressure in the strut(s) may cause one or both brackets to bend,
resulting in the struts detaching from the bracket(s) when opening or closing
the rear door.
If both struts detach from the brackets, the door will rapidly fall down and
possibly strike someone, possibly causing serious injury.
Dealers will replace the brackets for the struts free of charge.
Owner notification is expected to begin during September 2001. Owners who
take their vehicles to an authorized dealer on an agreed upon service date and
do not receive the free remedy within a reasonable time should contact Nissan at
1-800-647-7261. Hawaiian residents should call 1-808-836-0888. Also contact
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Auto Safety Hotline at
1-888-DASH-2-DOT (1-888-327-4236).
Or e-mail: Nissan@tweddle.com and they might have a suggestion.
This is the Pub. co. for the cd.
"I did a little research at our company and this is the answer I received:
The short answer is "yes, sort of."
The install program is a .exe file which will not install on a Mac.
However, the ESM is actually Pdf-based, which will function on either
platform. So, while you cannot "install" the ESM as designed, you can still
access the ESM information without trouble ( I did this on the G4 located in
DID)."
Thanks for the help.
I recently researched Tire Rack's customer surveys and was happy to see customer satisfaction with H/L tires was second only to Michelin LTX M/S. As I understand it, the H/L tires are a different breed of cat -- and really are a premium tire. They should be given their retail price !
We'll see how they perform this winter in Missouri.
Barry
As a personal preference i set mine to 30psi, since i rarely have a full load or tow anything. I was also noticing a "bouncy" quality at 26psi and had less road feel. At 30psi, i've found a happy medium and feel with normal rotation it should help to keep the tires from abnormal wear.
S-66
I run 35 in the fronts and 30 in the rears.
How often do you rotate your tires? Have you noticed any uneven wear on them since you run higher pressures in the front?
Just wondering,
S-66
When I moved from Wisconsin to Texas, I had a full load plus my boat in tow. My current tires are rated for a max of 45 or 50 psi. I ran 40 in front and 43 in the rear. Now that I'm driving around town with nothing in or behind the truck, I'm running 35 in the front and 30 in the rear, again.
Also, I rotate my tires at every oil change...3 to 4 thousand miles.
Nissan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree that the leather could be a little nicer. But i've had several vehicles with leather and found that if you condition it regularly and don't abuse it (soak it with wet clothes, coffee, water...) it will stay nice. I'd take your Pathfinder into the dealer if the seats are coming apart. Take it back and insist they replace them. Noone should be experiencing leather seats unraveling on a $35K vehcile.
The tranny on mine has been a little quirky, but as the miles are adding up it's becoming smoother and more predictable. I think it does a pretty good job at motivating a 4000 lb vehicle to 60 in under 9 sec. For the most part it's pretty smooth, too. There's the occasional hard shift, but i've noticed that with every auto tranny i've owned. There was another post of someone taking their's in for a similar problem and now it's working better than new. If mine acts up i'll pull up the TSB and take it to the dealer to be fixed. I'm sure it will take some discussing with the service manager, but they'll fix it.
My only words of wisdom to the masses here is to find a good service department. I've had nothing but trouble with the service dept. at the dealership i bought mine at. Now i'm taking to one closer to my work and think it will be a much better experience. I think for minor work you could even take it to an Infinity dealership and get much better service.
Anyway that's my thoughts on my Pathfinder experinces so far.
S-66
My 01 PF experience has been awesome. I haven't owned a tighter better built vehicle since my Honda Accord. My wife has a 2000 expy Eddie Bauer. We bought it 6 months after the PF. It already feels loose and has multiple rattles. The PF remains as tight as day one. Now at 17.5k miles.
This is my first Nissan and SUV so i hope it doesn't turn out to be a bad experience. So far i'm pretty pleased. I only have 4000 miles on mine and haven't had any minor or major problems not created by the dealership. I don't have the terrible shimmy everyone talks about, my transmition doesn't slip and my seats are holding up. To date, i love mine and have heard alot of others say the same.
Hoping for 100,000 miles of problem free driving.
S-66
S-66
I love our `01 PF, and it handles great off-road from the factory. Even better than our old `98 Durango, which is a serious machine in itself. Replace the rear LSD with a locker, get it a mild lift (which will have to be custom since no one yet makes suspensions for the R50 PFs, that I know of), some better tires, and it could truly be a great machine. But off-road, it will never be a Toyota, a Land Rover, or even a Jeep. Sorry, I have to blaspheme here a bit. Here are some potential problems with the PF off-road:
1.) IFS. Biggest problem. You need a solid front axle. IFS not only limits your articulation, but is more complicated and weaker than a live axle design. Remember, KISS. IFS may be better for on-road comfort, but is a true compromise. That's also why I'd never own a 4Runner newer than 1985 (if I was going to use it for serious off-roading). Or a Land Cruiser newer than 1997.
2.) Macpherson front struts. Great for a car, God awful for a truck that will be driven off-road. Count on them breaking after hard trail use.
3.) Lack of lockers. Yes, you can get LSD (which I insisted we got on our PF), but you really need a set of lockers front and rear. The 1993-1997 Land Cruisers had an option for THREE lockers, by God! Front, center, and rear!
4.) No skid plates. Whatsoever. What were they thinking?
5.) Unibody construction. Will NEVER be as strong and trail-proof as a traditional body on frame design. That's also where the Jeep Grand Cherokee fails (well, in addition to its reliability problems).
So what are some good points?
1.) Coil suspension at all four corners.
2.) At least one live axle (unlike some, like the new Ford Explorer abomination!).
3.) Factory option for LSD (at least), which is better than some makes out there.
4.) Light weight and perfect size (a beefy Land Cruiser might be too wide for some trails).
5.) Great safety in case of a rollover (while unibodies are weaker and will be totally trashed in an accident, they do protect their occupants much better than framed-vehicles).
6.) You can still get it in manual with a traditional transfer case (SE only).
Well, I think I'm hopelessly opinionated, but I hope this helps a little. Donning asbestos now...
-Derek
I do a lot of "serious" off-roading, and I've never broken a strut. Maybe they wore out sooner, but they've never broken.
While I agree a solid front axle makes for a better off-roader, the IFS performs quite well off-road considering that the vehicle handles like a car on the asphalt, where it spends more than 90% of its miles.
The Pathfinder doesn't have lockers as a factory option, and the LSD while somewhat helpful on the pavement, is not good enough for extreme off-roading. This is where the ARB air locker comes in.
You can get a skid plate for the part-time transfer case, although that's all that's available at the moment. Find out how. (I should add that the undercarriage of the Pathfinder is incredibly flat compared to other 4x4 vehicles, making it less susceptible to undercarriage damage/scraping and less needy of skid plates.)
I have to disagree with your statement about the unibody construction. Mine has been incredibly rattle and squeak-free for over 76,000 miles, many of which have been spent on only 2 or 3 wheels, subjectuing the chassis to extreme torsional forces.
As for the PF never being a Jeep, I concede your point. My Pathfinder couldn't make it past Walker Hill on the Rubicon trail, and on the way back off the trail, I sustained some rocker panel damage, munched rear bumper, and a scrape on the passenger door trim.
The Pathfinder is just not the type of vehicle that is designed to navigate 3-foot high boulders. I've learned the limits of my vehicle (albeit by exceeding them!)
Actually, I was replying to sabre, but I just cut and pasted the subject line, which apparently was your monicker.
Anyway, thanks for the info, that's some news for me on the PF aftermarket gear.
I have also not broken a strut, though I managed to loosen up a rear shock on Opal Mountain in the Mojave, but I have heard of it happening. But that might have been a fluke, the guy wasn't being spotted and dropped the wheel into a big rut at moderate speed.
In doing some more reading on Nissan's frame design, it appears that it is not a fully-fledged unibody, it's what they call "Monoframe" or something like that. It seems to have a somewhat traditional frame, body, and floorpan all welded together instead of bolted together, so you get many of the benefits of a unibody design, but also much of the strength of a body-on-frame. Pretty ingenious (if it works)! Does your generation of PF have the Monoframe, or is it a more traditional body-on-frame? Anyway, I wouldn't take a lack of rattles as any indication of strength. That's just a property of unibody designs (no rattles). A body-on-frame may rattle, since it's bolted together, but if you go over a ledge and slam that bullbar into the ground, the frame will hold up better, IMHO. I once saw a picture of a guy in Australia who had managed to tip his Patrol up so that the entire truck was on its nose sticking straight up in the air, and all the weight was on the bullbar. They simply twisted it 90 degrees in the mud, then tipped it back over and kept driving!
I will say that one reason TJM has not developed a bullbar for the new PF is because when they did the frontal impact tests, it crumpled the Nissan's frame. Not sure how ARB did it for their Sahara bar. Or maybe they just didn't test it, although I find that hard to believe.
-Derek
I'm mainly interested in the look and to add some lights. I don't want anything too heavy since my offroading is limited and my gas mileage is more important. I'd also like to know how much they'll effect the airbags if a front end collision occurs.
Once the truck gets a few more miles and years on it then i'll consider the ARB Bull bar upgrade.
Thanks in advance for any input,
Sabre66
The price is pretty good and the WAAG guard seemed good enough for my purposes. I can't afford to replace the whole bumper system...
I bought the 1-piece design, which is a little stronger & lighter than the 3-piece; but costs more to ship. It is steel tubing and seems very well constructed. It comes in three colors: black (std), nissan silver, or nissan titanium. I got the nissan silver color and like the lighter color of the bar with my bayshore blue paint.
The whole thing weighed approx. 70 pounds and was easy to install (30 min). It uses some existing holes in the nose to provide some additional support, to prevent pushing the guard into the hood.
Not sure it will help if I hit a deer at 50 mph, but it sure helps keep the shrubbery offp the front end, when I'm pushing through brush.
The WAAG website has some additional information...