gv280z

Believe me you speak much better English than most Americans, I really enjoyed reading your post, thank you for your insight. When I started this I didn't really intend for it to become a VS thread, I was just generally saying hi! It's fine with me if this gets moved or retitled more appropriately. I'll try to get some new Danger pics posted soon. Regarding vehicle choice it'll be my wife's daily so she and I need to start putting butts in seats and kicking tires. It's like playing vehicle Planko, there's no way of knowing where the puck (us) will land. Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk

Sorry guys, I just found and read this old thread http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/33369-xterra-vs-pathfinder/ so after this now I'm kinda leaning facelift R50. On that note I think this thread can probably be locked. Theres no need to go back down this same road again. Thanks.

I do know that engine wise the X's (okay, well...atleast in the 1st gen models) are still using the VG 33 engines and there were some supercharged models. (what's up with that, YO???? I haven't seen anyone pick up on that little piece of vg33 tech, it gets about 210 hp I think. VG33ER) Two wheel drive Xterras I'm told get 20+ mpg I'm guessing because of less weight and taller highway gearing. I can't completely reconcile with the idea of not having on demand 4 wheel drive and low gearing in emergency situations, which ofcourse may never come, ie...attacked by others, getting boxed in from multiple vehicles, jumping curbs and driving through ditches to take evasive action...I wouldn't hesitate to drive right through another vehicle in 4 low, push them outta the way. I guess in that respect I wanna go for the Xterra having a solid chassis. That's where I was at when I started this quest. I think it's basically just an upgraded wd21, I know it's got coil spring struts or shocks up front, somehow in conjunction with a torsion bar...that sound right? I won't really know until we start looking in person and get some test drives. If someone can tell me definitively no Death Wobble on Xterra then that'll do it for sure. Is that caused by worn tie rod ends or what? Danger's doing great man. He's really sweet and affectionate when he wants to be, other times he's trying to chew your hand off. Every one that comes in the office he gets to inspect and is generally well recieved. He's built himself quite a fan base and gets cookies and treats at Christmas time from our customers. He and my buddy's big black dog Hunter get along great, they chase each other and run and play and sometimes just totally ignore one another. Hunter is Daniel's road dog so he comes to work everyday and goes on delieveries.

Hey guys, it seems like it's been so long since I've posted in here I've gone all bashfull and didn't really know where to put this. Well lets see, I've been flying toy helicopters and small drone quadcopters, got my dad hooked on flying. I got him a Syma X4 Assualt and my son and I both fly Syma X11s. Plus I've got a Syma F1 Fiery Dragon heli. Been spending a ton of time trolling through CL looking for a vehicle for my 15 year old son who's turning 16 soon and isn't into the look of any SUV so my pathfinder was out of the question. Looked at a lot of trucks, drove to look at a lot of "dogs", learned patience and eventually settled on a cherry black 95 Honda Civic EX 2 door for $2300. While being in Craigslist Troll status I ran into a lot of scams, which pissed me off so I started flagging heavily. I totally learned the look of at least a few different kind of scams and I flag the hell of out them. Also why looking for my sons vehicle, I kinda started coming to realize I felt it was getting time to upgrade our family vehicle as well. So I've begun looking really hard at 01 - 04 Xterras and R50 Pathfinders. I still wanna keep our Family Vehicle (A) 4 wheel drive, rugged and comfortable as a road trip vehicle or just running around town. I'm have a hard time figuring out which direction I wanna come down on this issue...Xterra has a chassis and the Pathfinder has Unibody. Pathfinder is more powerful and somewhat more handsome. Xterra is rugged as the former wd21, and has it looks like a little bit more interior space. This new family vehicle will replace my wife's Nissan Altima (which she is also apprehensive on letting go of) She says she likes the Xterra and would drive it. Not to mention she will be commuting a little farther on her way to work and I'd like her to be in a stronger, more rugged vehicle than the little Altima. One concern is the fact that she's only driven Front wheel drive before and has no idea how to handle a rear drive vehicle if it ever steps out on her in bad weather. ((We had a horrible fight once because I got a little sideways in the Pathfinder and ofcourse I tried to hold the drift as long as possible, coming out a U-turn under an overpass...what was I supposed to do, pretend I didn't enjoy it?)) Traction control anyone? Xterra? Pathfinder? Women drivers in the rain? Hello? God gave us Four wheel Drive. So I actually came to the point where I said I'm actually going to sell my Pathfinder. My truck just carried us to New Orleans and the French Quarter and back to Houston on the weekend of July 4th and never missed a beat. Thank you Pathfinder. Not only that but damn their roads SUCK! I was soooo glad we took the Path and not the Alty because I'm afraid the bottom would have been torn out. French Quarter was interesting, smells like pee in some places. Cafe Du Monde really does live up to the hype. Guys, do NOT go here on a date. You will not represent your self well while eating beignets covered in a pound of powered sugar. I have had to finally admit I guess after 4 or 5 years of ownership I'd outgrown my truck and wanted something a little more updated. So I started looking at a lot of Xterras...with a few R50s thrown in. Thoughts? Do Xterras get Death Wobble? In other news today I got my new 2012 Chevy Silverado replacement work truck with 45,000 miles and a sweet little 4.8 L vortec V8 aka Family Vehicle B. The Old Man with the 4.3L made it to 410,000 miles and is still slugging it out but he's been moved into semi-retirement. My son's Civic is sporting a D16z16 VTEC or something like that..it's the low rate vtec motor with 125hp single cam head and 4800 rpm engagement. Runs good, engine growls, makes a nice sound and sips gas like crazy. Filling the tank actually makes me laugh. I was able to find a K&N air filter for it on Ebay for ten bucks. Probably the only mod that car gets for a while. Maybe a high flow cat in OEM diameter...maybe. No fart cans..God those things suck. oh yea, DANGER CAT LIVES ON! Greg

Actually I don't have this problem with my Nissan, it may happen to a very small, almost unnoticeable degree but my Silverado on the other hand sounds like a damn tattoo gun when at idle.

If you've got a failing starter on it's last leg, you could turn the key ten times and nothing happens except you might hear a small 'click' noise, and then it would start up on the eleventh time like nothing ever happened. Bad starters begin failing sporadically until they quit for good.

Huh, that's cool, I appreciate that, I'll check it, thanks!

It sounds to me like a loose exhaust shield that rattles and vibes at low rpms, and then clears up when you give a touch of throttle. I've got the same exact thing on my 06 Silverado, when it's idling it's got this crazy RAAAEEEGGGHHHHHHHEEERRRRRAAAAAGGGHHHHHHEEEEERRRRAAAAAGGHHHH rattle vibe, its annoying but harmless...

Hey guys, sorry I know there are a lot of sub topics related to the original being discussed here but my comment goes directly to the original topic: SO I guess the auto makers are delibrately overlooking the fact that the Ford Focus, Acura TSX, Honda Civic Si, Mazdaspeed 3, (FORD Mustang with a turbo charged 4cyl engine making 300 hp!?) and all the Furious movies were a direct, Line of Sight result of gearheads working on and modifying cars all through the 90s and 2000s. Then you can look at the American muscle car segment. We would NOT have a Charger/Challenger Hellcat if guys haven't been building up various sizes of v8 engines and running them down the strip for the last 60 years. That's frigging rediculous, automakers owe all the gearhead fanatics bigtime for ideas and innovations that they looked at the things that people were doing just did them on a more produced scale. That's not even to mention all the autoparts stores and areas of support that sprouted up around Joe Wrench-Turner.

Yeah, I tried something like that too, but it didn't work as well for me. I ended up just disconnecting the spade connector to kill the whole thing, but atleast now my foot and dome lights don't flicker on and off anymore while I'm driving.

Here is the automatic transmission diagnostic sequence I followed, apparently it only applies to those who have the power option to switch between power and economy / auto: http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/39086-transmission-problems-help/?p=737772

I mentioned I called up Rob in Dallas, this is what I meant: http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/18653-genuine-nissan-parts/?p=315059 If you have 31" tires or just stepped down from 31" to 235 15s and need to correct your speed, he can get you the right pinion gear you need

If you have had experience with either of these quirky sensors before and know what they are, where they are and what they do, then you can stop reading now. I wanted to relate my personal experience with these items even though I'm pretty sure they've been covered countless times before. My truck broke and I did try to research and find answers on here, I didn't come up with too much to go on, so I guess that's why I wanted to just kind of do a reset on a little bit of information. So over the years of owning my truck, occasionally it wouldn't want to shift from 1st to 2nd (autotragic) and my wife would say "HEY! Why does it sound like that?!? Hmmmm????" And then it would eventually shift and drive normally. But then while going down the road, sometimes the transmission would start frantically trying to figure out what gear it was supposed to be in and the speedometer was totally off, not even in the ball park.... Plus, on an unrelated note, most times when I'd start the truck up, like a minute or two after the engine has been running, the tachometer would start flipping around crazy like, I had no idea why, and this was after tune up and alternator replace, ok so there's that...let's move on. Fast forward about two years, driving along and then suddenly the speedometer hits the deck completely, down to 0.0 and the transmission kicks down out of 4th or 3rd, overdrive or whatever...so ofcourse I pull over to the shoulder, flashers on and do the whole turn off the engine, start it back up again and drive, oh now the check engine light is on....ok, now it's not shifting into 2nd AT ALL, no matter what, unlike before if I just gave it a second, it would shift....uh uhh...not now. 1st is all I'm getting and I'm committed, no offramp, no exit, no where to run to, so I limp over a huge bridge in first gear, go somewhere safe, waste the entire rest of my day waiting on a wrecker to take me home. Okay, I get home and start reading and trying to learn. Someone has posted a autotragic diagnostic sequence to count the flashes and find out what's wrong with your transmission. Mine came out to 8 flashes on the led light on the power shift switch which led me to the code Engine speed circuit, which translates to the Crankshaft position sensor which is located under the distributor rotor, under the gold cap, it's the thing that "reads" the little disk with all the holes in it. Ok. So I replace this sensor for $135 thinking this is going to fix my truck. WRONG. It didn't fix the TRANSMISSION.......ahh, but it DID fix something else that I didn't even mean to fix, but once I realized it..I let it ride. The Crank sensor translates directly to the tachometer and probably some other really important ignition timing type stuff as well. So now my tach doesn't bounce around anymore. So, back to the drawing board. I come online and find anything I can on the VSS vehicle speed sensor and finally I'm able to learn definitively the location of the VSS on 4WD Pathfinders, is located in the transfer case on the passenger side, almost directly above the cross member support, and is just held in by a tiny little 10MM bolt. Honestly the hardest thing about this is crawling under the vehicle, and then getting that damn connector to let go. I spent more time on that stupid plastic connector than I did actually fixing the truck. That was one thing that had always stumped me everytime I looked, I was looking in the wrong place, it's not in the transmission, on 4wd the speed info comes from the TRANSFER CASE The OTHER thing that always gigged me everytime I tried to look into buying a speed sensor is it's God awful confusing trying to figure out which one to get: http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/search/Vehicle+Speed+Sensor/01879/C0033.oap?year=1994&make=Nissan&model=Pathfinder&vi=1211971 Look at this link for O'reilly auto parts, they show like several different speed sensors! Some have with manual transmission, some are for automatic trans but 2wheel drive only...uh huh, then there are without 31" tires, and then with 31" tires and automatic transmission...but...it doesn't say 4 wheel drive? Oh wait there is one with 4 wheel drive but NO MENTION OF TIRES!!!!!!!!! Arrrrggghhhh!!!!!!!!! And they all look different, some are short, some are long what the hell is going on here? This is very off putting! Here is what I did. After pulling mine out of the transfer and saw the giant blue pinion gear I realized that I needed the longer style armature, like this one here : http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/IDI0/130122/01879.oap?year=1994&make=Nissan&model=Pathfinder&vi=1211971&ck=Search_speed+sensor_01879_1211971_524&keyword=speed+sensor&pt=01879&ppt=C0033 this is the 4WD speed sensor designed to ride in the transfer case, I'm guess the short armature goes directly in the transmission itself on 2WD However, I didn't pay $115 for mine, I got mine for $38 shipped off ebay at this store: http://www.ebay.com/itm/130978267624?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Okay so they've gone up on then a couple bucks but it still beats paying $100 for it. This arrived today, I removed the locking washer from the top of the armature and removed the blue pinion, and put it on the brand new one. I inevitably destroyed the lock washer go I super glued the pinion gear firmly on to the armature and let it dry, popped it back in and hooked up and took it for a spin. The first thing I noticed was the check engine light went off immediately when I started moving down the driveway in reverse, ohhh what a feeling.....and it it drove great. Fixed. Now the last thing I'm waiting on is I called up Rob in Dallas and ordered the 19 tooth WHITE pinion gear so as to correctly match the speedometer to my 31" tires, when it gets here I'll yank it back out and pry / split the blue one off the armature and put the white one on so my speed will hopefully be dead on. So to recap, below I have listed everything that gigged me and held me up and what I learned about that item: CRANKSHAFT POSITION SENSOR -- under the distributor rotor -- monitors engine speed for ignition, feeds the TACH VEHICLE SPEED SENSOR 4 Wheel Drive -- passenger side transfer case 10mm bolt -- feeds the speedometer, tells tranny when to shift -- LONG armature 31" tires requires the White 19 tooth gear (this is totally optional, no harm no foul here, your speedometer will just read incorrectly)

Research Nismothunder and see if he recorded his build because he did it and finished it, I just read his profile. He stuffed a 305 into his Pathy. He's the man you need for this.

Isn't this Nismothunder's realm? is he still active? If you want to go big and put lots of work into high HP you can still do that with the VG30 block without going turbo. It's all about the cam / head work and bore out to make into a vg34. Even if you stayed with the original bore and stroke, just the head flow with 3rd angle to 5th angle valve job and big cams with port and polish, combined with the lower weight of the smaller mass engine, and throw in a lightweight flywheel, and then go with all the Jim Wolf ecu, pop charger etc...you could build a little screamer.

I just tried this and I got 8 flashes and a long pause before the rest of the sequence. So according to this, I've got a bad Engine speed signal circuit..

I have another vote for the Manual. Yesterday while driving down the freeway, I'm pretty sure my vehicle speed sensor went out completely, speedometer hit the deck and the transmission shifted from 3rd to 2nd. I pull over to give it a minute, turn off the engine and turn back on. Now that I'm stopped, and in 1st gear, that's ALL I've got! The transmission computer didn't know when to shift gears so it just left me in 1st because it thought I was going 0.0 miles an hour! Ohh how MUCH would I have loved a manual transmisson at that point, let me TELL you. I had to get towed back home, 29 miles that I could have just easily driven had I been able to choose my gears. And there are times while offroad, wheel spin shifts the transmission up into 2nd occasionally, but doesn't downshift back to 1st so all of a sudden it's very sluggish and you think, WTH? Am I stuck? So there goes the transmission ecu throwin you a little turd cicle there for ya. Usually I have to stop and turn off the engine completely, and then start up again and it would shift back to 1st.

Those shiny steel rims you are referring to are one inch narrower than your Legos, they are 15x6, the Legos are 7" rims. I'd like to jump up to 32x11.50 /15 too but you gotta know it's gonna put a bit of a damper on your highway speed and HP plus those tires are heavy, and any existing problems you've got from worn out suspension, steering, tie rods and bushings will be magnified.

ahhh.....ooooh, that is a tough one....I was about to tell you how to replace the broken handle but to do that, the lift gate needs to be OPEN! Haha....ummmmm......I wonder if you could use a pair of pliers, like needlenose to put in there and try to twist the latching mechanism so it'll disengage. ....hmmmm, no I guess that wont do it, you might be able to use a flat head screw driver to mimic the lever action the handle was intended to provide and push the connecting rod down so it'll open? That whole "no latch on the inside" thing is a real pisser.

I tend to float between Mobile 1 10w30 Synth and Castrol synth. But always go with the mobile 1 synthetic oil FILTER. A good filter is just as important as the oil. On occasion I've just changed the filter halfway through an oil cycle just to freshen it up. I used to think Royal Purple was the answer and God's gift to engines, until I blew an engine while running it. However, in retrospect that engine blew after I had been making multiple consistent 120 mph runs in my Honda Prelude and I'm guessing I'd been burning oil the whole time and didn't know it...finally it just went. I haven't gone back and tried it again since then.

Lol, nevermind. Manual. Next please!

Boy this brings back memories, A very long time ago I replaced a slave cylinder and bled atleast twice. It's easy to do by yourself if you've got a bleeder tool, you can get from an auto parts store, they're not expensive. It looks like a large plastic tube with a hose coming off of it and a "squeeze arm" on the back to suck the fluid out while not allowing air to flow back into the line. Or you and a buddy can do it, one person sits in the car and pushes the clutch petal down while the person underneath has the valve open, this will push the air and fluid out which you will need a drain pan to catch. Close the valve, announce to the petal guy it's closed so that he can bring the pedal back up, if the valve is open when you do this you'll only succeed in sucking air back into the line again, so: Petal goes down while the valve is open to bleed the line, close the valve, petal goes back up. Repeat process until only fluid is coming out and petal guy reports there is proper feedback / pressure in the clutch petal. Needless to say this job requires an outstanding level of communication. Good luck!

Chadius does your truck have the power option? Mine does and sometimes, not all the time, mine will beep like that for some reason, usually I'd been driving in power mode like a day before and then I switched back to economy. I have no idea why it does that, and also the light on the switch flashes too.

I seriously doubt it, why not just try going to a tire dealership and first just ask to compare the two side by side and you'll see the difference is almost imperceptible, it's about maybe a 1/4" to 1/2" difference, and then ask for a fitment test. If they do charge some kind of a tire mounting labor fee, I can't see that it would be that high and that would probably be only after they removed the new one and put your tire back on the rim, if you were to buy a set then I don't think they'd charge for a clearance fitting. Even if you do end up owing $40 - $60 bucks atleast you'll know for sure.

Try not to worry about the jury duty thing, they can't ever prove that you recieved the summons, all they can do is threaten you. I've been there, I skipped once and then recieved a letter wagging a shame shame finger at me with a re-scheduled jury duty date..so I went, heh. Never heard a word about it. The yellow bellied slugs who ripped you off, first thing is I could almost guarantee you it's someone you know, I think it's just part of being a teenager, I'm sure you know and are known by others whom you'd probably otherwise choose not to associate with. Second thing, you're going to school, you're on the right path, you're going to be a high powered engineer probably writing schematics on a jet engine while those turds who ripped you off are just trying to find a couch to sleep on. Don't give up Bro, keep slugging it out, you'll be alright.