mmcpeck

HAHA...Dude I felt like it!! He was so friggin smug, like $400 is completely normal for plugs and wires. I am gonna pick the truck up tomorrow and tell him to shove it! What a waste of time taking it to the dealer. I may have to write a letter to Nissan, not sure if it will do any good though.

Took my '97 Pathy into the dealer, it has a noticable misfire and the CEL is on. They scanned it and pulled P0300 and a knock sensor code, obvioulsy caused by the misfire, so I'm not worried about that one. Anyway for the P0300, they say they want to put plugs and wires in it, no cap and rotor, just plugs and wires...... for $400!!!!!! WTF??!!! The guy tells me that the plugs are $27 each!!! Wires are $100, which I can see, but $27 for a friggin plug???? And on top of that 3 hours of friggin labor, to do 20 minutes of work!! I've doen them myself before and even with the back plug on the VG33, it is a 1/2 hour job when I do it. I found a set of NGK's at Advance Auto for $1.99 a piece. How the hell can the dealer scam people like that?? I know they are more money, but that is a blatant ripoff!! Does anybody know why they would be charging me that?? I am really let down by the dealer. Thanks.

Yeah I thought that OBDII vehicles needed to be read with a scanner. Just figured I'd check. Thanks.

My CEL came on in my '97 Pathy and I have a pretty noticable miss. Only happens when it warms up. Don't have access to my scanner at the moment, and don't want to drive it with this miss to take it to Auto Zone to get scanned, so I was wondering if I can get the CEL to blink the codes. Is there a way to make the Check Engine light blink the trouble codes by using a certain sequence with the key....like an on and off sequence 3 times or something? Thanks.

It's definitely the compressor pulley. I heard it and checked everything else around, using the long screwdriver trick. Took it in to be diagnosed and they said the same thing, but said that the whole compresssor needs to be replaced because it's all one assembly. Just figured I'd see if anybody else ever had this problem or knew for a fact if I need to replace the whole compressor. The dealer told me it will be about $900 with all labor and tax. An aftermarket shop told me about $600 ballpark. I just hate to replace the whole compressor when I know there's nothing wrong with it and it works fine, just for a bearing in the pulley. Why would Nissan make the compressor like that?

I'd say it's most likely one or both of your exhaust manifiold's, I believe the most common side to go on the VG30 was the driver side. They had the same issue on the Maxima engines, same manifold issue. I worked for Nissan for a few years and I did countless amount of these manifolds, it was easy money, warranty work. It could be the bolts, the manifold is warped or the manifold itself could be cracked in half, I pulled a lot of them out in two pieces once I got the bolts out. On the VG30, which you have, it was a lot harder of a job as the bolts would tend to break inside the head and you'd havde to drill them out. At the time I worked for Nissan we were seeing a lot more of them on the VG33 which is the Pathy's from 96-99. They were easier as the bolts would usually always come out no problem, the problem with them was the actual manifold's themselves would warp and/or crack. But I did see a decent amount of warped and/or cracked VG30 manifolds. RTV won't do a thing, exhaust manifolds are extremely hot and will melt RTV right away. More than likely you won't be able to see where it's leaking anyway or be able to get to it too easy. At most it will just be an annoying noise, but you may see some worse gas mileage than expected, as the O2 sensor isn't gonna get an accurate reading. Depending on the state you live in, it could cause you to fail inspection also. In NY that would fail as soon as it came in the door. Just for the hell of it you might want to check with Nissan and see if they may possibly still goodwill it, you never know. Check a couple of different dealers.

I have a '97 Pathy, and the bearing on the pulley in front of the compressor is making a constant grinding noise, whether the clutch on the compressor is engaged or not. I was under the impression that the pulley could be pulled off and replaced, but a local mechanic is telling me that it needs a whole new compressor because it's all one assembly. The compressor was replaced by Nissan under warranty at about 100k miles, about 60K miles ago, and works fine, A/C blows real cold, clutch engages and disengages no problem. I was just wondering if it is actually possible to replace just the pulley on the compressor, without having to evacuate the A/C system, pull the compressor off, and then re-charge the system? It just seems rediculous that the entire compressor would have to be replaced, when the only thing wrong is the bearing in the pulley. Thanks.