PerlNinja

I wish, it'd mean my 2WD secretly turned into a 4WD

Mine does it at any speed, well, above 30km/h really. As soon as you lift off the gas it starts softly whistling, like something is spinning down. Get on the gas a little bit, it whistles "slower", get on the gas to keep your speed the same and it's gone. At first I thought it's the wheel bearings, but after driving around a bit with my head out the window it's really coming from the engine bay somewhere... dunno what it is

It never hurts to have some, 'specially if you're out offroading, when things tend to go wrong there, they tend to go *really* wrong usually. Heck even having a pack of bandages with you is a good idea; if you don't have to use them on anyone, you can usually get away with using them as a replacement V belt (or however you call it in English ) if it snaps. They're usually good to get at the very least the water pump and such going, and last long enough to get yourself off the hill and into a garage. (Yes, I've done this, and no, not on my Pathy... but I'll tell the story some other time ) Well, let's just say that I usually sit back and read what I wrote before posting, and some major corrections were needed because the language alone was good enough to make even the saltiest sailor blush... We have it in Holland too, although with a few small differences: if you're a medical professional (and being an EMT counts), you *have* to stop even if nobody asks you to, if you're joe q. average, *if* you stop, you have to stay until police shows up to take your statement. You can't stop and decide to take off again. If, however, it's found that you did not stop (as joe q. average) and that your not stopping caused someone to die or otherwise be injured more, you're up on involuntary manslaughter charges. And in Holland, it's easy to find you because pretty much every governmental database is interconnected, and with the amount of cctv and speed trap cameras going (or eyewitness reports), they can find your ass any time they want. Never did find out if they went after the people that didn't stop at the car fire thing.

Ouch... I feel for the biker, they're so often totally overlooked it's insane. And all I can say is: amen brother, good work. I had the same thing happen, basically. Down here we drive on the left, so to sketch the scene a little: 4 lane highway; a truck gone over on it's right side, spilling bags of sand/cement onto the rightmost lane (the fast lane), truck is blocking the lane next to the rightmost one (if you number em from the left side, bags in lane 4, truck in lane 3), and the passenger car that apparently plowed right into things is partially blocking the 2nd lane. As usual I'm in the fast lane (Terry does about 140km/h), and I stopped about 20 meters away from the truck and bags. Pretty much everyone in lanes 1 and 2 squeezed by on that end of things, but people in the 3rd lane and the 4th lane were basically sort of screwed because traffic mentality here is "me me me me me me me and more me" so they can't merge in cleanly. As witnessed by a Toyota Landcruiser swerving around my stopped car, going between my car and the passenger car, and plowing through the bags popping a bunch of them while honking madly. (Note: a Landcruiser is an expensive vehicle; there's a 50/50 chance that it's being driven by a driver, and that the owner is sitting in back. The owner either being a very rich person and hence having that whole "oh, I'm better than the peons" attitude, or some government official, in which case they aren't thinking or doing anything because it's below them). I did end up moving my car a bit to block the 4th and 3rd lane and shield the passenger car and truck a little; I must admit I wanted to be a bit closer in to that truck as well in the event of someone hitting my car, I didn't want it to go bouncing up and down the highway. Wish I had a big truck though... Like I said though, this is just one of those things that gets me all fired up, and I do have a tendency to go off wildly about it. Then again, I have to admit that traffic down here is bordering on the insane, I could fill up a book just writing about the things I see here that are considered normal, yet would get you arrested and hauled off on endangering the public charges in any western country. It adds an extra layer of "rrrrawwwwrrrrgghh" because a lot of accidents I've seen could've been prevented.

Well, yeah, you got me there But it's not a how-to so... yeah Anyway, on some level I can fully understand why people won't stop, especially for me living where I live there's an inherent risk of some mob action one way or the other because it's easy enough to fire people up on the "oh, look, a foreigner, let's go get some of his money" mentality, so it's a risk. Mental issues though, people that have them shouldn't drive Then again that'd mean all of us would have to stay home because I think we're all a slight bit crazy about pathy's and offroading And I'll apologise for going off like a raving lunatic, it's just this: people that know they're not good in those sorts of situations generally don't rubberneck either. They just keep going. If someone is going to slow down and rubberneck to see if they can spot some dead folks, or see some tragedy happening so they've got a story to tell; those are the ones that irritate me badly. Those are the people that should basically just grow a pair and stop, they'd have a better story to tell later on, on top of helping out some fellow people in need. Anyway... *steps off his soapbox* ... let's just say this is one of those things that hits close to home, so I'm figuring it's best to sort of wrap this topic up. I shouldn't have posted it in the first place, but I'm not known to have good judgement when I'm really pissed Back to the regularly scheduled off-topic banter

*ahem* *steps up on his lifted soapbox* True with regards to the EMT training, not so true for being useless if you don't have it; even if you have no medical training, at all, if you're the first person at the scene of an accident you can be useful; call 911, check people to see what they're like, and talk to them. If someone else got there first, then you can always move debris, or park your car with emergency lights on (in a safe-ish spot), and go about 100 yards up the highway and start waving to get people to slow down. My "standard" kit that I've had in all my cars (even a tiny little Hyundai) consisted of: 1 first aid kit (currently it's a huge first aid kit), 1 medium sized fire extinguisher (it's not going to put out a fire, but it'll give you enough room to yank people out of there), a few tow ropes (well, always useful), 2 belts (you know, for your pants. make decent tourniquets if you're in a hurry), 2 1.5 liter bottles of water, a crowbar, a maglite, two emergency triangle things (forgot what they're called in English...), and a red plastic tube that I can stick on top of the maglite to create an insta-traffic wand. Not saying everyone should carry kit like this, but having at the very least a small first aid kit, flashlight, and that insta-wand thing is going to be a lifesaver. The brutal truth behind me being so adamant about this stop-and-help thing: A long time ago I witnessed an accident at night, was the first on the scene, and saw 4 people burn. I didn't have an extinguisher in my car at the time; the 6 or 7 other cars that passed might've had one, but they weren't interested in stopping. They just wanted to slow down to watch the carnage. And then move on.

Yeah okay that's one thing, I'm talking about it happening a couple hundred yards in front of you - on your side of the road. If it's on the other side of the highway, I'm not stopping because chances are I'll either be the next victim, or someone that is rubbernecking doesn't notice my stopped car and plows right into it.

@Tungsten: I sincerely hope you're joking... @Dowser: Well, back in the mother land I had an active EMT rating, it's expired by now but it's not stuff you forget And yes, the first few minutes after an accident can literally be the difference between life and death. As for my reasons for stopping; if I'd pass it by and would later read in the paper that someone died; that wouldn't sit well, at all. I'd rather stop and find that everyone is okay and be on my way again, and at least know I did the right thing.

Well this was a bit more than a fender bender, small truck on it's side, and passenger car with the entire front end crumpled up, everyone turned out to be okay but it looked ugly. As mentioned in my blog post, it's one of the reasons I keep a full first aid kit, fire extinguisher, and some other bits and bobs in the trunk; down here, it can take up to 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, and sometimes it just comes with a driver, no medical staff.

Hola folks, in case you hadn't seen my introduction yet, I own a locally (Indonesia) assembled 2002 WD21 Pathfinder that has a few oddities to it that I hoped someone could shed some light on. The most quirky thing is this: there's a toggle switch on the dashboard that isn't standard. It's ground is wired up on one side to the brake pedal stop (i.e. if you push the brake pedal down apparently the circuit is broken), and the other side disappears alongside the wiring harness into the engine bay. Anyone have the foggiest clue what this might be for? I've tried to figure out where the heck it went but as is often the case down here, most wiring jobs are done using copious amounts of duct tape, so I've not managed to find anything yet. The effects of this toggle switch are also a bit strange; if it's in it's "on" position, it seems the engine has more "oomph", it'll rev higher, and seems to deliver more power. A bit odd since it's a carbed Z24 in there, so hoping someone can solve this mystery

@Trogdor: Yeah for real, it's a carburated Z24 in a 2002 WD21 Here they're still called Terrano's, threw me for a loop when I was Googling @nunya I think Indonesia ended up in the same situation as Mexico, and they were assembled locally. The VIN number is also mighty damn odd, not 17 digits either. Anyways, pics wise I'm a bit low, only have one, posted below ... but I will take more later today if I remember right. Been up all night working so by the time I get up it's probably getting dark again As far as it goes though, the Z24 is a pretty good engine, a bit underpowered (90mph flat out though), but otherwise reliable as all hell. Does require some tender love and care from time to time but it pretty much accepts anything you throw at it. Ok on to visuals and such: Sitting in the carport @ home: The instrument cluster: And for those of you who haven't got weak hearts, a really crappy made-with-cellphone video I made to show some friends what driving in Indonesia entails. I'll state beforehand that it looks like I'm tailgating, speeding, overtaking on the wrong side, and will say: yes, you are completely right. This is how 99.9% of Indonesians drive, and if you want to survive the roads here, you basically follow the "When in Rome..." principle. The wind you hear is because my window is open (was smoking a cig), and the exhaust is uh... well... it's got this Remus semi-fartcannon exhaust under it, courtesy of the previous owner. Being lazy and cheap, I left it on Anyway, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hke0tGIlcE

Hi folks, Stumbled over this website the other day after trying to dig up some info so figured I'd register. A little about me: I'm 34 (oh yeah...), Dutch by birth, have lived in the USA for a few years and have been living in Indonesia for the last 4 years. Married, one kid (currently 5 months old... he's awesome), and I spend my days being a freelance IT geek for hire. I'm the happy owner of a 2002 Nissan Terrano. Yes, no @!*%, 2002. Apparently they kept producing D21 based Terrano's in Indonesia up until 2006. It came equipped with a Z24 engine (no, not the Z24i, the Z24. Carburator and all...). 2WD, although I could've sworn it used to be a 4WD but has undergone some... modifications. The car's history is blurry, it's apparently been owned by 2 other people before me, but it's running like a champ still. I basically figured I'd bug you people with odd questions about this car, given that it's body style and most of the equipment seems to be equivalent to a late 80's Pathfinder, and nobody around here except the Nissan dealer seems to know anything about these cars. Even the dealer is a bit of a dodgy thing since they tried sticking Xterra parts on it some time ago... Anyway I digress. Hi everyone!