[MachX]

Hey everybody. I'm a short time lurker and info leech here. I've been shopping for an 06, 07 Off Road for a while. Today I took an 06 auto for a test drive and it seemed to be handling really well and looked in great shape with 140 thousand kilometers on it.

Then as we are driving along the sales guy tells me, not knowing anything about Xterras 'cause he's a jeep dealer, "it had this weird driveling shake when you got it up to 80. So we sent it off to Nissan to get repaired."
He was very excited about how they solved some unknown problem and were making the truck better for me. All I'm thinking is
SMOD!!

It turns out that they actually sent it to a private shop who replaced the u-joints on the front drive shaft and changed the transfer case fluid. It no longer has the mysterious shimmy-wobble at speed. But I don't see how the front drive shaft would affect anything at highway speeds in 2wd.

The tranny dipstick looked okay. Pinky not milky. Nothing under the rad cap. The rad has not been bypassed.

I'm scared. uke:

I guess my big fear is that smod has happened to this truck already and I'll never be able to tell. Well, until the tranny starts to go. Maybe they changed the coolant and AT fluid as some point and its all covered up. Maybe they did it last week...

Any advice would be appreciated. I ran the idea of a 1 year/20k powertrain warranty (i'm not paying for it) past them and they seemed responsive. Unfortunately the truck is a pretty decent price and they want to move it.

Thanks for reading, guys.

 

[Surf and Snow]

The front hubs are fixed. In 2wd, the front wheels still spin the cv axles, which spin the front diff, which spins the Front DS. Just FYI.
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[MachX]

Thanks surf. I just wasn't thinking that an issue relating to the front ds should come on suddenly at speed when not driven from the transfer case, which they also found cause to service.

 

[rthinchey]

^^ Exactly what surf and snow said.. the front axles always spin. Unless you're wheeling and the power goes to the wheel with less resistance, but that's a whole different story. Unfortunately, Nissan upped their warranty to 80k miles but you're just past that 80k mark. So if you can get the 1 year/20k warranty, I would do it! Plus most SMOD attacks show signs around 35-40 mph. That's what mind did too, anyway.

Where are you located, Canada?

 

[rthinchey]

If the driveshaft doesn't reach some sort of resonance frequency or it's just not spinning fast enough until it gets to higher speed, the vibration might not appear until the high speed. And for the T-Case - it could just be regular maintenance - that fluid needs to be changed every once in a while too. Not to totally defend them, I guess I'm just looking at the glass half full

 

[MachX]

Yeah, Canada. I'm in Vancouver.
I like the glass half full theory too. Fully full is even better.
I expect a car dealer to lie to me. Maybe I'm just too paranoid.
I'm going to have a scotch and think about it.

 

[Mrcole]

I had same issue - driveline vibe at 70-80mph. Replacing front u-joints fixed the issue.

 

[N.Y.X.]

Also, make sure they put NISSAN MATIC D in your transfer case. I would have my doubts coming from a private shop. The tranny and TC can be finicky and most say to stay with the matic d and s; but the people that do run something different it's usually high end like amsoil. Just my .02 cents.

 

[silverflash]

Also, make sure they put NISSAN MATIC D in your transfer case. I would have my doubts coming from a private shop. The tranny and TC can be finicky and most say to stay with the matic d and s; but the people that do run something different it's usually high end like amsoil. Just my .02 cents.

yes yes!!! what he said!