Nissan Problems

Given the kilometres showing on the car in question, that price-tag is about right, rather than any kind of exceptional bargain. Beyond that, the D40 Navara is not generally regarded as a magnificent long-term prospect and many in the trade reckon about 160,000km is the limit for reliable service going forward. At least the one you’re looking at has a full service record, so that’s a start, but frankly, there are better options out there that represent greater value for money as well as longer shelf-life.

The D40 in turbo-diesel form was susceptible to timing chain problems at about the 80,000km mark. Check the service record to see if a new chain was fitted around this mileage. Even if it has, mechanics reckon the chain needs to be inspected every 40,000km thereafter to prevent catastrophic failure when you least expect it. The D40 also suffered from injector problems, EGR coolers that could fail and ruin the engine, automatic transmission coolers that could destroy the gearbox and lots of other problems right through to cracks developing in the vehicle’s body. The fact that this is an ex-work truck won’t help those problems one little bit as it’s probably already had a pretty hard life, servicing notwithstanding. The broad advice for somebody looking for reliability first and foremost would be to cast your net wider.

There’s no simple answer to this as the final cost will depend on how much performance and battery range you wish to engineer into the car. That said, the basic cost of a kit to convert a conventional car to run on electricity is somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000, but that includes only the very basics. Neither does that figure include the cost of the battery-packs that you’ll also need, so the cost will only go up from that figure. All engineering sign-offs would add dollars to the final tally, too.

Converting petrol cars to run as EVs is a real trend right now, but if you look at the types of cars being converted, there’s a common theme running through them: The majority of conversion candidates are older, simpler cars with none of the safety systems that a 2003 Nissan X-Trail has as standard. It’s much easier, for instance, to convert a car with no air-bags, no anti-lock brakes and no stability control. If the car in question lacks power-assisted brakes and power-steering, even better. 

This is not to say that the conversion can’t be done, but it’s much simpler – and cheaper – to convert something old-school (like an air-cooled Volkswagen) than converting your relatively modern Nissan. You’d need to ensure that the car’s anti-lock brakes and air-bags (and everything else) still worked and then be able to prove that to an engineer before the car could be legally registered and driven on public roads.

What you’d end up with would be a Nissan X-Trail that represented maybe $50,000 and still only had 150km of range between recharges. Those numbers simply don’t add up when you can buy a second-hand EV – a Nissan Leaf, for instance – for comfortably less than $20,000; a car that is already legal to register and drive. 

The only thing more unreliable than a low-fuel warning light is the on-board computer that gives you a distance-to-empty kilometre figure. The problem with the latter is that the figure will differ enormously depending on your driving style at the time. For instance, the computer, a highway trip might, suggest you have 100km left in the tank. But once you hit the outer suburbs and switch to stop-start driving, that number could be as little as half the figure flashing on the dashboard.

As a rule of thumb, car-makers tend to calibrate the fuel-warning light to come on somewhere between 100 and 50km before you actually run dry. But it’s still a stab in the dark, and really not worth pushing your luck.

To get the most accurate feel for what the fuel-warning light is really telling you, here’s our advice: Fill the car to and absolute brim. A 2014 Navara holds either 75 or 80 litres of fuel, depending on specification. Then, the next time the fuel light flashes on, pull into the first service station and fill it to the brim again. That will give you a pretty accurate idea of the umber of litres you’ve used from filling up to the point where the light switches on. Then, you can subtract those litres from the tank’s capacity to arrive at how much was left in the tank.

While turbo-diesels aren’t perfect for everybody, when it comes to towing trailers, they do a pretty impressive job. The combination of a torquey diesel engine with an automatic transmission is a pretty handy one when you have a decent sized trailer hooked up. The caveat with a modern diesel, however, is that if most of your driving is urban running about, then the diesel is probably not for you. That’s because the emissions system on a modern diesel (the particulate filter) needs regular longer runs at freeway speeds to avoid giving trouble. But if, as you say, you tow a trailer often, then that should provide the load on the engine the diesel requires to remain trouble-free.

The good news is that the dominance of the SUV right now means that just about every car-maker has a mid-sized SUV in its showrooms right now. So really, you’re spoiled for choice. I’m not surprised the X-Trail is found a bit wanting at times; even brand-new, that version of the petrol-engined X-Trail could feel a bit underdone. You’ll be amazed at how good newer vehicles have become.

No. While the D40 Navara did have warning lights for things like contaminated diesel fuel and a warning light for the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) the Navara didn’t stretch to a light to warn that maintenance to the camshaft timing system was due. That’s mainly because the Navara’s four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine used a timing chain rather than a rubber timing belt, and the chain should have been good for the life of the engine.

Experience has shown, however, that the YD25 engines that used a single-row primary timing chain did, indeed, experience premature chain wear and failure in some cases. And this is probably at the root of your question. The trade now recommends that these chains be changed before the 80,000km mark, with inspections every 40,000km to make sure nothing is wearing out too fast. The aftermarket has developed a double-row replacement timing chain for these engines, so any replacement of the chain should take this into account.

Modern turbo-diesel engines absolutely hate having water enter the fuel system. It can cause lots and lots of damage and isn’t always fixed by simply changing the fuel filter and the contents of the tank. Sometimes injectors and even the high-pressure fuel pump itself will be damaged by the ingress of water. If that’s the case, then more work will be needed before the vehicle is safe to drive again, as you may wind up doing more harm to other components until the full scope of the water-damage has been diagnosed.

For that reason, you really should have the vehicle looked at by a specialist. A specialist workshop will be able to tall you what else needs fixing or replacing. A specialist will also be able to electronically cancel the limp-home mode and any check-engine lights once all is well.

Your car is probably still worth around $4000 to $5000 depending on condition and kilometres. The catch is that you won’t be offered that much if you use the car as a trade-in, and the value I’ve quoted would be to sell the car privately, not back to a car dealer. A lack of demand for good used cars is keeping values a little higher (a lot higher in some cases) than they might have been, so even though your car is still worth decent money, you’ll pay a bit extra for whatever you replace it with.

As far as lifespan goes, that has a lot more to do with maintenance than any other factor. If your car has been serviced by the book, there’s every chance it could last for 200,000 to 250,000km and perhaps even more. But I’ve also seen neglected cars die incredibly young.

Just as oils aint oils, batteries aint batteries. The correct battery for your car will not be based on brand, but rather its capacity and output (does it have enough grunt to turn your engine) as well as its physically layout (are, for instance, the negative and positive terminals on the correct ends of the battery for your battery terminals to connect properly).

By `kick out’ I’ll assume you mean the starter motor doesn’t spin the car’s engine when you turn the key. There are lots of causes for this. The first is that you do, indeed, have the incorrect battery that doesn’t have enough cranking amperes to spin your engine and provide enough power to the vehicle’s ignition for the engine to fire. Or, you may simply have fitted a battery that’s low on charge for the same results. Buying a brand-new battery from a shop is no guarantee that the thing will be fully charged up. It’s always a good idea to charge any new battery overnight before trying to start a car with it, in case the battery has lost charge while sitting on the store’s shelf for weeks or months.

Beyond that, there are still plenty of reasons for a car to refuse to turn over. I’d start with checking the earth connections from the battery to the car’s body and engine and then do a test on the battery to see if it’s in decent health or not. Most workshops can do this simple test for you if you’re in doubt.

It sounds as though something is loose in the transmission and is vibrating (the noise you hear) when the brakes are applied and the load is taken off the transmission. Then, when the brakes are released, the load reapplies to the transmission (as the car begins to creep forward) and whatever is rattling is suddenly under load again and stops making the noise.

This could be down to something in the transmission itself, and if that’s the case, could be a worn torque converter. This is the component that actually turns the engine’s power into a force that drives the transmission and, eventually, the wheels. Inside the torque converter is a series of vanes. If one of these is loose or damaged, a rattle can be the result.

However, before you rush to that conclusion, have a good look under the car. There’s every chance the noise is a simple case of a heat shield, bash-plate or even part of the exhaust system rattling at a particular engine frequency. When you take your foot off the brake and the car starts to move, the engine revs change, the vibration frequency changes at the same time, and whatever it is stops rattling. An internally broken catalytic converter is also a prime suspect for producing a rattle at certain vibration frequencies.

This is a more common problem than you might imagine and applies to a lot of cars besides Nissan Navaras. It’s not always caused by people with constantly wet hands or those who work with chemicals, either; a lot of pampered vehicles have seen this type of problem.

As well as being pretty ordinary to look at day after day, this sort of damage also devalues a car when you go to sell it. The warranty on your Navara would have been for the first three years (Nissan shifted to a five-year warranty mid-2019) but because it was a demonstrator, the warranty period would have started from the date it was first registered or reported as sold, not the day you bought it.

Most new-car warranties also state that `normal wear and tear’ is not covered, but there’s an argument that normal wear and tear shouldn’t be visible on a steering wheel after just four years and 60,000km of use.

If it really bothers you, there are motor trimmers who can stitch on a new leather covering which I would expect to last a lot longer than four years. You would, of course, have to remove the wheel from the car which requires somebody who knows their air-bag safety drills and procedures.