nick9871

So my 1998 pathfinder is burning oil, rapidly. After two months of normal driving the engine will be already a full quart low (about 1000 miles). It is not leaking oil at all, I cant see a lot of blue smoke out the tailpipe. So I am really not sure what the heck is happening to the oil. Any ideas?

so this is sort of hard to explain. On the freeway at cruising speed if i let off the gas completley and then put back on the gas the car sort of snakes or squirms. It is a very odd feeling it basically feels like the back end is trying to break loose (which its not obviously). Any ideas what could cause this? Bad u-joint? Bad alignment? It is a 1998 Pathfinder with a OME lift and spacers up front. 31" tires, balanced properly. The alignment could be off, however.

Ok well I checked out the struts and it was scary. Basically where the strut passes through the top hat (the small hole) had become oblong. So there was about a 1.5" long oblong hole where the top of the strut moved back and forth in. Which explains the negative camber, the shaking, the noises etc. What was scary was the top of the strut, where it had been rubbing through the tophat had sort of dwindled. In other words the strut post was "toothpicked" at the top. I deemed the car undriveble and will have to order new struts and top hats. What I am concerned about is why this happened. I remembered that when I put the struts in I had the local nissan dealership assemble the sruts and springs. What the heck could they have done for this to happen? Or is it possible that the OME struts I received were the wrong model?

well that sucks for him. Guess he should've gone and done what I had asked him to do... You know what, now that I think about it, he had an alignment because I got him some new wheels and tires after the lift as well. I would imagine they would have said something about negatve 2.4 degrees of camber. I know that he has been wheeling since then. I have never owned an off road vehicle with IFS up front and struts for suspension. Is it physically possible to "bend" the strut or other suspension components enough to through you out of camber?

Is it possible to have installed the struts backwards? I would imagine they are 1. labeled and 2. would only fit correctly on the correct sides... And yes to the picture post, it is definitely negative camber / \

I put a OME HD lift on my brothers 98 pathfinder a few months ago. I told him to go get an alignment after a few weeks. I didnt look at the alignment after the lift, it looked normal to me but i knew that it would probably need to be adjusted. Well he waited 2 months and he went to les schawb to get it aligned and it was 2.4 degrees NEGATIVE camber in the front!!! so the tires are sitting like this / \ . I have never had this happen with a lift kit. Could the springs be defective? Will camber bolts be able to repair this negative camber?

My younger brother had his 98 pathfinder stolen. He left the door unlocked and a spare key in the center console and it is my assumption that someone he knows stole it. Anyway, the culprit only took the deck and sub, and took the spare key as well... So he needs to have all the lock cylinders changed. I called the dealership and they gave me some astronomical quote of $1500. How difficult is it to remove the lock cylinders? I would assume after that I could just change the pins and have new keys made for them. Do the 98 pathfinders use electronic keys for the ignition?

Nah he doesnt wheel it. I will take a look at the linkage this weekend.

Yea it sounds like it is going into neutral, and it sounds to me like its the transmission. I am just wondering why it would do this... I have the stuff to do a tranny fluid change, perhaps it is just low on fluid and or it has not been replaced yet? EDIT: Now that I think about it, it has to be a transfer case issue, since it only happens when he is using 4 wheel drive...

1998 Pathfinder SE, 100k miles. My brother was driving yesterday in some snowy conditions. He was using his 4WD and was doing city driving (ie stop lights and what not). He said that sometimes when he stopped the transfer case and or transmission would "slip" and he basically sat there and the engine would rev and not go anywhere. To quickly fix the problem he shifted the transmission (not transfer case) into neutral and then back into drive. Sometimes there was some grinding, but this procedure seemed to work. He said it only happened a few times. Any ideas what would cause this? Also, another question. He just bought the Truck and it has 100,000 miles on it. I went to change the timing belt the other day and noticed that there was a metal Nissan sticker on the fan shroud that said Timing Belt replaced, and had a milage of 78k and a date of around a year or 2 ago (cant specifically remember). Should I not worry about replacing the timing belt?