Goodbye Nissan Patrol Y61
Submitted: Monday, Dec 09, 2013 at 06:52
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SAFirey
After a reliable 13 years I have decided to get rid of the trusty Nissan Patrol.
The decision was not easy and stemmed from a friend who's horror story goes like this.
They came to
Adelaide from
Canberra to stay in the caravan which they have towed all round Australia with the Nissan Patrol with the ZD30 3.0 litre diesel engine. It has done about 150,000 kms. All was going
well on the way back
home when trouble struck, the engine blew 10 k's out from leaving the caravan park at West Beach. A tow-truck was arranged to take it to a mechanic. The caravan was towed up to relatives and parked out the front. Mechanic advises him that the engine will cost about $16,000 to replace with a new engine. no such thing as a recon 3.0 litre he says. Repairs were commenced and finally he got the vehicle back and was told you need to do a 1,000 km's first to run it in. Sounds easy you say,
well he didn't get that far and comes out in the morning to discover a
pool of oil under the car. Rings mechanic and the Patrol gets towed in again, suffice to say friend is not happy! Mechanic tells him that the rear main seal on the engine is leaking, so friend says surely it's covered by warranty. Mechanic rings Nissan who supplied new engine and they say after being told what has happened that "No warranty applies" due to the fact the new engine was bolted to old parts and not new. At this stage the smoke out of our friend's ears is very noticeable. After a bill over $20,000 and stuck in
Adelaide for 72 days he drives back to
Canberra with caravan in tow. Since then I have looked through many 4X4 forums and the comments all too familiar, that the 3.0 is a grenade just waiting to explode.
My Patrol had 138,000 kms on the clock and never missed a beat, but I sure don't have a spare 20K for a new engine, should the inevitable have happened.
Anyone else had this experience? Comments
Reply By: Robin Miller - Monday, Dec 09, 2013 at 07:45
Monday, Dec 09, 2013 at 07:45
I think it was 1998 that my brother invented the term grenade for that car Safirey and it stuck.
I have always advized people not to get them unless they have an insurance plan in place.
Yours sounds like an excessively bad version of the story though with many being fixed for much less and many others being modded.
A friend here has one with nearly 500k on it (has anti=grenade mods).
They are quite a different car from the petrol version.
To be fair they have got better over the years and now many still love them as they are almost the only mainline car left with solid axles / coil springs etc.
Get yourself covered for mechanical
breakdown , better still trade in for the 4800 petrol version, effectivily cheaper to run and a lot more capable.
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Reply By: SAFirey - Monday, Dec 09, 2013 at 11:50
Monday, Dec 09, 2013 at 11:50
Thanks for the
feedback so far,
mine was a 2001 GUII, and I will pass these comments on to him. He had some of the mods done previously but that didn't guarantee it wouldn't
breakdown.
Some of the Patrol owners on the forums I have read have had them let go at 50,000 k's and others at anything over 150,000 and they either blow through the top or the bottom of the engine.
The issue with the GU's seems to be the thickness of the pistons in the ZD30 diesel and Nissan rectified this some time later.
One thing about the Patrol is they are solid and built tough axle wise but the engine was the let down, maybe I should have gone for the 4.2D after all, however at the time it was the only one the dealership had.
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Follow Up By: olcoolone - Monday, Dec 09, 2013 at 17:08
Monday, Dec 09, 2013 at 17:08
Diffs may be strong but the housings are not as strong as you may think, I have seem many with cracks in the diff housing.
The later ones are worse and a built cheaper using spot welds and thinner materials.
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