Nissan Problems

While the ZD30 engine should have been a major step forward in terms of technology with common-rail technology and double overhead camshafts, in reality, the engine was not one of Nissan’s finest moments. Bottom end failures were not uncommon with cracked pistons necessitating full rebuilds.

Several causes have been suggested including poor fuel-air ratio management and boost spikes form the turbocharger putting sudden, huge loads on the engine’s internals. Either way, though, the engine is far from remembered fondly.

CarsGuide has looked at this engine in depth, and even published a guide to the Nissan Patrol ZD30 engine.

Fixing this would involve disassembling the door from the inside (removing the door card) to reveal the workings inside. From there, you can assess whether the glass has jumped out of the rail that supports it at the bottom, or if there's some other problem with the mechanism.

If it’s the former, you’ll need to find out what adhesive is required to fix it back into place. A windscreen replacement specialist might be able to provide this information. A Nissan dealer may also have the correct product on the shelf.

Replacing the glass might be a bit fiddly as there's a lot of gear inside a modern car door, including the side-intrusion bars, the window winding mechanism and the metal parts of the actual door. Some patience may be required.

This sounds awfully like badly worn transmission. The Dualis in automatic form used what’s called a CVT. Instead of gears inside the transmission, the CVT has pulleys and metal belts that vary their relationship and, therefore, create the various 'gear ratios' the car needs.

When these pulleys and belts wear, they can start to make the noise you’re reporting. And, just like your car, it will get noisier as time passes. Unfortunately, you’re probably looking at a transmission overhaul or rebuild. If you continue to drive it as it is, you’ll almost certainly do more damage, although it sounds like the real damage is already done.

Take the car to a transmission specialist who will be able to accurately diagnose the noise and take it from there.

This mightn’t be too hard to figure out as the GU Patrol used a purely mechanical engagement system for the transfer case and four-wheel-drive system. Unlike newer designs with rotary knobs and electronic control, there’s really not to much to go wrong with the Patrol’s setup assuming it’s a selector problem. Make sure the selector rods are all connected properly and that they’re not binding or loose under the car.

However, if the lever is engaging and the front drive-shaft is not turning the front wheels, then you may have a hub problem. Free-wheeling hubs are great for saving fuel, but when they go wrong, it can often mean the drive doesn’t reach the front wheels. At that point, you have a bigger job on your hands. The same symptoms could also be a result of a broken front differential which is not sending the drive out to the front wheels. Finally, the transfer-case itself may be at fault. If it’s not sending the drive forward, there’s no way the vehicle will achieve four-wheel-drive.

Also, to maximise your chances of engaging four-wheel-drive, make sure the vehicle is stationary at the time and the transmission is in neutral. In fact, this is essential for moving between two and four-wheel-drive in many types of off-roader.

Short answer: No. The park-brake warning light is there to help prevent you driving off with the park brake engaged. But really, all the lights on the dashboard should go off when you turn off the ignition and lock the car. The possible exception is a flashing light to warn would-be car thieves that the car is alarmed.

Dashboard lights (and other lights) that randomly light up when the car is switched off can be a sign of a slowly dying body computer, but you should never ignore a warning light for the braking system. You could find the light is being triggered by an actual fault in the park brake mechanism, including maladjusted cables, worn brake pads or some other mechanical problem. But we’d also check the owner’s manual to make sure that the same warning light is not designed to be triggered by some other braking problem like, for instance, low brake fluid level.

You need to be strategic with problems like this one, and not just throw new parts at the car which may or may not fix it.

That means the first thing to do is electronically scan the car to see if the on-board computer knows what’s wrong. Hopefully this information will lead you to either the ignition or fuel system and, from there, you can home in on the fault.

Ignition-wise, you may have a computer, wiring, spark plug issue or about a thousand other things on a modern, electronically-controlled car like this one. If the fuel system's at fault, you need to check things like the filter and fuel pump delivery pressure and volume and even the age of the fuel. Modern fuel doesn’t like to sit around for any length of time, and many’s the car that has been sidelined through petrol that has lost its mojo.

While the G35 Skyline is not a common car on Australian roads, its driveline is pretty well understood. Even so, finding a workshop that specialises in this make and model would be a good idea.

If the problem occurred immediately after you replaced the carpet and seats, I’d say there’s a very good chance you’ve unclipped a wiring plug or connector to remove the interior, and failed to reconnect it afterwards. A lot of modern cars have airbags in the actual seat (the side airbag usually) and the wiring often runs under the seat.

The best move would be to remove the seats again and check for loose wiring or wiring or connectors that have been damaged of misplaced in the process of the interior’s removal. But before you touch anything under there, disconnect the car’s battery. That ensures you won’t have an accidental airbag deployment that could injure you while you’re working in that space.

If you check out a lot of used-car sites right now, you’ll see that a 2016 Navara ST-X can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $55,000. Why the huge price-range? Because there are so many variables with this type of vehicle. Frankly, I’d need a lot more information to make any sort of educated guess on the value of a car I haven’t even seen, so I’m not going to offer one.

Because this type of vehicle is often used off-road, its condition is crucial. If it’s been bashed up, you can take thousands off the price. Has it been a hard working tradie truck, towing a huge trailer every day? How’s the service record? What distance has it covered? What accessories are fitted? What’s its overall condition? Has it been heavily modified (A lot of Navara four-wheel-drives have)? Is it a dual-cab, single-cab? Is it fitted with a tub, a canopy or a drop-side tray?

Without all this information, it’s simply impossible to hazard a guess at the vehicle’s value.

A loss of engine power can be due to many things. Most mechanics will start with a check of the fuel and ignition systems to check for things like dud spark plugs, ignition timing, broken ignition leads and coils and whether or not enough fuel is reaching the engine (worn fuel pump or blocked fuel filter). If all that checks out, then the search will move to mechanical things like the camshaft timing, and whether there’s a leaking engine valve or a vacuum leak somewhere.

The 2.5-litre petrol engine in your X-Trail is a very well known quantity, so there’s plenty of expertise out there. A workshop that deals with Nissans in particular may have seen exactly this problem before and will be able to go straight to the cause.

Meantime, don’t rule out the really obvious stuff like a dragging brake that could be making the vehicle feel sluggish.