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Also, dealer says Nissan does not overnight warranty parts. I have seen similar evidence of warranty part delays in this message board. Going on a week waiting on part.
I have a '99 Pathfinder and want to remove the factory roofrack in order to install a Yakima. I need the higher weight for a a pair of kayaks. Factory will only hold 100lbs, Yak will take 165.
Is it possible to remove a factory rack?
TIA!
Second...anyone had problems with the auto window feature. Specifically the window going all the way up and then starting back down. Almost like the pinch protection is kicking in improperly? The dealership can't seem to replicate the situation and won't do anything if they can't. Wondering if anyone had the same problem and found a fix for it.
Thanks in advance for any help.
AL.
28,200 + 6% taxes = ~$30K
22,125/30,000 = .74 * 100 = 74%
Depreciation = 100 - 74 = 26%
I think that's pretty good for a 2 year old vehicle since I still have about $6000 in equity on it. But, again, it only has 16,000 miles. Go ahead and try it yourself on kbb.com.
I think the depreciation is dictated, for the most part, by the mileage. In my case, the truck isn't used as much since it's a mommymobile and mommy usually stays home with the Twins.
But, if you have higher mileage, say in the 40,000 mile range, the depreciation dramatically drops. Mine went to $18,250 with 40,000 miles on it.
And other than the shimmy (which is totally gone now), I have not had a problem with the Pathfinder. The engine is a jewel and I have no rattles or squeaks. It's just rock solid.
I will try to list and describe all of the things, but I am bound to forget a few.
The list is in no particular order, just how it comes to my head.
1) Steering – I have driven other cars and suv’s, and the steering on almost every other vehicle I drive has a tendency to want to go back to the center, not the case in my Pathfinder. It almost seems lazy, and if you want to bring it back you have to do it. This is most apparent when making turns, whereas most people just lightly guide the wheels straight, whereas I have to do a little more work than that.
Also going around corners and turns it seems as though I might be turning the wheel slightly yet it still wants to go straight a little bit. The alignment is fine on the car.
When I hit bumps in the road, especially when going around a corner and turning it seems as though my steering wheel loses its ‘track’. It just doesn’t feel right.
2) Ride – I had a previous 99 Pathfinder, and I don’t remember the ride this bad. Every single bump / line / paint / crevasse – anything in the road I feel on this car This happens when its slightly loaded as I haven’t had a heavy load on it yet.
On the highway I can feel almost everything in the road, even when it’s smooth as silk. It’s frustrating. I have to make many many many adjustments while driving on the highway, especially on highways that have lots of curves; I really travel from side to side in the lane.
3) Brakes – when I brake, such as making a turn or going around a corner, the steering seems to pick up even more resistance. It gets tight had much harder to maneuver around corners and turns.
Also when coming to a stop at stop signs and traffic lights about half of the time the brakes making a squeaking noise. Also there seems to be lots of fade, and it doesn’t seem smooth at all when coming to stops.
4) The carpet in the interior. It does not seem flush at all with the floor of the car. When I touch it with my hand, I can push it down a bit. Also in the drivers foot well where the foot rest is for the left foot the carpet does not seem to fit right around there.
5) Automatic transmission – When switching from Park to drive, and reverse it is such a harsh transition. IT doesn’t seem to want to switch from each mode smoothly. Also I usually have to wait a second or two for it to engage whichever mode I Selected, and I can ‘feel’ it happen
6) I’m not sure if this is related to the car, but it easily spins in the rain. Even coming out of the car wash once on a flat service making a turn I spun out the rear wheels. It might just be a combination of the light rear end with a high torque engine, but I have a very very light foot.
There is probably more, but the major things that tick me off are the steering / ride and braking that I have discussed above. Like I said I have a little bit more than 2000 miles on the car. I don’t know what could cause all of these problems on my car, but they have basically been there since I took delivery on it.
I brought the car to the dealer a few weeks after getting it, told them about the ride, etc. I was at work that day, but the service manager and a technician drove the car around and said they did not see anything that I found wrong with it.
So then I thought, ok maybe it’s me. But its not, these problems still exist and I can see them a month later.
Hopefully someone here has an idea as to why I am having these problems. If I am lucky maybe its one thing that’s not right hat is causing all of these problems, and I can just take it to the dealer, tell him what it is and they will fix it.
I do really like the pathfinder, and I immensely enjoyed my previous 99 pathfinder. The new engine is really nice, but if only the rest of the car was as nice I would enjoy it much more and not pay attention to these problems.
Thanks guys if you can help me out,
Matt
2002 Nissan Pathfinder SE 3.5
site www.yakima.com and follow the steps to get
the right ones. Take off the crossbars from the
PF rack, they unscrew and slip over as I recall.
Store them. Put the rail riders on, the yakima
bars go thru them (48"bars) I have them on a 99.5
SE Limited. Weight on these type racks is usually
somewhere around 150 lbs but ALWAYS use a tiedown
to the frame front and back in addition to straps.
BTW, you can always remove the rail riders and
put the stock bars back if you sell. Good luck
Any ideas?
Secondly, there is a curious noise when I depress the brake, but it only happens when the vehicle is in park. When I press down on the brake in park I hear a little, yet distinct click that appears to be coming from where the shifter is (it's an automatic 2WD). The brakes operate fine and sound fine in drive or reverse. I was wondering if anyone else has ever heard this click.
Good Luck!
Will S
If you read the service bulletin that deals with steering shimmy, it mentions that by excessive torque on steering rack, it would make the steering hard & would not return to normal -- the problem you are facing. I would suggest that you get acquainted with the bulletin & call Nissan, open a file/case & all the best. (Shawn - Seattle).
PS: After having to spend 30-Gs, one would not anticipate bad engineering!?
The Railriders come with square nuts that fit into the tracks in your factory rack after you remove the factory cross-bars. The Rail Rider towers then bolt into the square nuts and the towers can be slid along the factory tracks.
Steering - One of the weak points of an otherwise great machine. It is overboosted and over stabilized. There is no on-center feel because of the steering geometry. They could have done a better job here. You can't "fix" it.
Ride - It is a little bit stiff. Not as bad as a 4-Runner but worse than a Grand Cherokee or Explorer (especially the new one). If you load it up it is a little worse because the rear springs have a low rate to make the unloaded ride better. Some people are putting air springs in there. You can affect ride slightly by changing tires, depending on what you have. You can also change shocks but I would not change springs.
Brakes - I disagree that somehow it is more difficult to steer when you apply the brakes. In any case, I hate the idea of rear drums in the year 2002. They need to get with the program. Not that rear discs would do much, as most of the braking is up front. But it would help. The rotors are small-ish and they have been known to warp. Brakes is the biggest engineering weakness, IMO, but they do stop the car. As for squeaks, I guarantee you they are no worse than any other SUV (or car) and squeaks come and go in any car. If you don't believe that visit any other forum where "average" people complain. Everyone talks about this, as if they have never driven a car before. You can mitigate the squeaking with the right compounds behind the pads, the right brake pad material, and uncontaminated rotors. But it may still come and go.
"Spinning" - The Pathy has as good a traction as any car with its weight distribution and tires. Period. You can't somehow defy the laws of physics just because you have a 4WD car. One thing that you probably could have gotten was a limited-slip diff and you'd be happy. I can take any SUV in 2WD (rear wheels) mode and spin it in rain all day long. My Grand Cherokee was terrible. With the limited slip on the Pathy it spins maybe 10% as much.
also, I took a nice clear night, went on the highway for about 30 miles, going around 60mph the whole way. it still didn't seem right. maybe its me, maybe its not, but I swear I was bouncing and feeling bumps that did not exist on the road...
you disagree with my statement on the brakes, which means I have a problem. the moment I apply the breaks, no matter how light or had the steering changes right away.
I don't have a problem with squeaking per say, except when it starts after only 1,000 miles on a new car...
I should have gotten a limited slip diff. thats something I have learned for the next time, no big deal, I just have to be a bit more careful with this, (Even though I'm careful and light footed) because of all the torque...
i knew that the ride woudln't be good, duh, but it doesn't seem as bad (mainly on highways) as this one... around town etc its fine for the most part besides the steeering that seems to tighen up after 20 minutes of driving, and stay that way until the next time i drive it.
also the headboard cloth is like cardboard, and the 'carpet' on the floor, and cargo area is like steel wool.
its not even properly fited, when i try to use my 'dead pedal' to rest my left foot, there is nothing to place it on because its not firmly against the 'metal' where the pedal is. my foot easly falls off, and no, its not wide or abnormally sized.
was i blind folded, no. i test drove 2 of 02 se's before, however my dealer had to go out of state to get the model i wanted with the color and sunroof.
Adam
The installation is pretty simple and should take about 1hr or so depends on how good you are at measuring things.
I have this install on my '99 SE with the Yakima Load Warrior.
Here's a pic of the rack and the Warrior
....
I have had every single issue and then some but still feel our Pathy has been a "good" vehicle for the past few years and I can honestly say I'm glad the lease is coming to an end. I'd buy a newly updated Pathfinder only after these "issues" were updated and not a second before.
The reason I chimed in tonight is only because I'm online looking for information on the new issue that just hit today on the way home, the Service Engine Soon Light. I remember something about either the fuel cap or some sensor. But it goes to show that after you pass your 36K mileage you'd better be prepared in case something major does happen.
It is a $30,000+ vehicle but that isn't really putting it up on the high end these days. If only Nissan would go through these posts to see what owners are dealing with.
For those of you that enjoy your Pathy, AND for those who have "issues" I can understand.
Good luck trying to cool the rear of your Pathy, getting rotors resurfaced(under warranty, even at 35Kmiles), quieting the brakes and solving the shimmy!
Dano
I have the check engine light come on a few times and the dealer would replace the Oxygen sensor. Once it came and went away. It has come on again and now we are a month out of the 36 month warranty. I am not sure what to do so I will just neglect it. I read the emission warrany and noticed that it does NOT cover the O2 sensor!
We have had the permanent shimmy problem. Alignment and wheel balancing makes it go away to some extent but I never had a permanent fix.
1) Had new rotors put on at 15,000 or so for warping. Feels like it's time for new ones again. Anybody put any aftermarket (Brembo, etc.) rotors on & had good luck? Also, if they've replaced your rotors did they also replace the pads?
2) Anybody had a squeaking noise as the steering wheel is turned? This is definitely inside the vehicle, not outside.
3) Had excessive tire wear on the outside of my front tires around 15,000 miles so I paid (unfortunately because I waited past the 12,000 mile adjustment warranty) for an alignment & they told me it was toe out & this should take care of it. Well, here I am at 23,000 the front tire wear is just as bad or worse. I've rotated my tires myself per the schedule.
Like I said, these are minor things to deal w/ compared w/ other vehicles... more nuisances. Let me know if you have any comments. Thanks...
My shimmy was fixed by the Hunter balance machine.
I will try that even though it sounds as though its coming from the front end...
Read this message about my experience after ignoring the check engine light:
CLICK HERE
If that link doesn't work, go to the main Pathfinder comment area and in the "MSG#" field, enter 5568 (even though the message # really is 5351 - go figure!)
54320-2W100 (insulator), 54329-0W000 (spacer-front), 54322-0W010 (bracket-front),
54325-5V000 (bearing-st). The noise went away! Your squeak may not have the same cause, but I'd have the dealer check it out. I hope I helped.
FYI, in California, I think there's a law that states that the headlights must be turned on one hour before sunset and one hour after sunrise, and it's illegal to drive on the road with the parking lights on if the headlights are not also on... I've been pulled over and warned about this in the past.
Headlights aren't just to help you see when it's getting dark- they're for other drivers to see YOU as well.
Just a thought...
Basically concept of re-wiring is same as any other car. The way you wire is look for positive 12 volt wire from fog lamp which is connected to right side head lamp, you need to disconnect that and re-wire to hot wire when your engine is engaged (such as parking light). All this need to be done in Relay box, which located under the hood.
Let me know if you want the instruction,
-jc
at normal turns. At larger angled turns it just tries to stop. Dealer is saying it is normal. But I did not have this grinding problem before. Also
when drove a 01 PF it has the grinding issue but
to a much manageable degree. Anyone has experienced this? Any comments?
Do not use 4x4 on drive pavement, especially when turning, you can damage your truck's differentials very easily this way. Hopefully you have already done so.
Hopefully someone will give a better explaination than I do.
....
So, if you want to know if anyone experienced this? My answer: Hopefully not! But the dealer is right - it is normal when engaging a part-time 4WD system on a high-traction surface.
May I inquire why you're doing this?
I rarely use the part time 4x4, only during wet weather or when I am driving in snow. Last time when I engaged the 4x4 in wet weather I noticed
the grinding was more than what I had experienced before.
So the increased grinding..is it a sign of some problem in the differential or transfer box or something ? Apprecitae any help.
Did you recently get new tires? Bigger tires or different tread design or rubber compound could change the behavior and make the issue either more or less noticeable.
As for using P/T 4WD in wet weather, don't do it. Wet pavement isn't slippery enough to let the driveline slip. If you're driving on a completely snow covered road, it's OK but not on a mixed snow/wet pavement road. It's best to either keep it in 2WD or switch back and forth as needed. Unless your tires are bald, you'd be surprised how well your truck will drive in 2WD with sensible use of the go-pedal.
thanks for any help you guys can give me
mike