Sunday 28 August 2011

Nissan owners facing huge bills over mechanical issues (U.S)

According to reports, owners of the body-on-frame Nissan Xterra, Pathfinder, and Frontier (Navara overseas) have been seeing expensive transmission failures and owners want Nissan to assist with repair costs.

The radiators within the aforementioned vehicles have a habit of cracking and leaking radiator fluid – an issue Nissan has recognised and sort out with an extended radiator warranty – but it doesn't end there.

A report from the New York Times indicates that many owners have shown a connection between the defective radiator cooler tanks bursting, thrusting radiator fluid into the transmission via the transmission cooler lines, thus causing transmission failure and huge repair costs. Jance Wiggins, technical director for the Automatic Transmission Rebuilders Association said in an email that there is a “huge” problem with the automatic transmission in the three vehicles.

“This is a total failure of the cooler portion of the radiator that is responsible for the cooling of the transmission,” said Wiggins. He continued to say he has seen transmissions give way at 60,000 miles (96,558km) due to the radiator fluid tainting the transmission.

The Centre for Auto Safety and NHTSA have received
over 250 complaints
Nissan was contacted by the NYT when Colin Price, Nissan spokesman, said that any repairs needed on the transmission would be covered as well.

“The issue here is that Nissan knew that they had a faulty radiator and instead of recalling the radiator they extended the warranty knowing that the majority of the cars would surpass 80,000 miles before they started having problems with the transmission,” read a complaint to the Centre for Auto Safety by Eva Saldivar. Saldivar’s 2005 Pathfinder had clocked 115,000 miles (185,000km) when the radiator failed, taking the transmission along with it, increasing the repair bill to $6,000 (£3,660/€4,130), none of which Nissan has assisted.

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