rev up your engines, today I'm working on a 13 year old Nissan Xterra did it's one
hundred and seventy seven thousand miles, isn't running just right and makes a
clunking noise when you decelerate a lot, the customer wants to know should he
continue to throw money into this thing or should he get rid of it, I'm gonna
prove one way or another what would be the smart thing to do
now the Steelman chassis here is pretty cool, it's got four of these units that
are sending units, you clip them on various parts of the vehicle and take it
for a drive, it's often very hard to diagnose noises that occur only when you're
decelerating in a vehicle with all four wheels on the ground, for example this
thing if you put it up in the air and step on the gas and let go you won't
hear the noise, you only hear it when the load is on it and you take your foot off
the gas, now these exteriors have a history of
transmission problems, so I'm gonna put a couple of these on a transmission another
one on an engine, and then drive it around, it's really simple to install
we'll put this one on the motor here, then we'll put the main unit we'll clip
it on this hose just so it doesn't get stuck on anything or bounce around, then
we'll crawl under the vehicle here and we'll stick one on the transmission, we'll
just clip it on here, and put the little device here so it's clamped on pretty tight
and we'll plug it in and take it for a drive, as you can see here these things are sensitive, it's gonna hear any noise that's occurring on the vehicle, then we just
drive it around with the headphones on, switch it from channel to channel on
this until we hear the noise the loudest, and guess what the noise that was the loudest was the one
I hooked up to the transmission, so it's an internal transmission noise
and since the check engine light is on we're gonna put the scan tool in, just
plug it right in, see what it has to say, what does it say it says p0730 gear ratio
incorrect, now theoretically there are quite a few things can actually cause
that, but I've worked on enough of these Xterra to know that when you get a
clunking noise coming out of the transmission, and it's got the code for
incorrect gear ratio, that means the inside of the transmission is starting
to break down, now in this case the vehicle's 13 years old has 177k
miles on it, it's really not worth either having a transmission rebuilt or
replaced, now these transmissions are known
failure items in these xterras for more than one reason, so it's not a deal
where you could think, oh well I'll try to get a used transmission and put it in
because odds are the used transmission won't be any good either, it's in a
vehicle that's known for having problems, it's 13 years old, and if you buy one
from a junkyard it's from one that was put in a junkyard for good reason, so you
don't want to try a used transmission on one of these, now yes it still looks good, doesn't
ride all that bad, but with this transmission starting to go out, I'm
gonna advise the customer get rid of it sooner than later
now it's his vehicle and he can do whatever he wants, I mean I can also tell him, if you
want just keep driving a thing, sometimes they'll still go for a while clunking
here and there but still drive down the road, thirteen years old with 177
thousand miles, odds are he's not gonna be able to get much for it he it tries
selling it, but at least now he knows what's actually going on with the
vehicle, it's one reason I advise people not to buy Nissan's these days, because
automatic transmissions are pretty crappy, and I see them going out all the
time in these xterras, which is one of the reasons you can buy them so cheap
second hand, because the market pretty much knows, they get older they start to
get expensive to repair, big old SUV with a v6 engine in it, their pretty much gas hogs too
they don't get the greatest gas mileage, now it has gone 177 thousand miles but it
had to have all the catalytic converters replaced, it's a typical Nissan when it
gets older, it starts to turn into a money pit and when the transmission
starts to go out, you really don't want to get involved in that expensive repair
on a vehicle that's hardly worth anything, because when I scan the rest of
the vehicle not just the transmission, hey it had ten body control module code
fuel injection system codes, I mean you don't want to mess around with something
like that, there comes a time when the cons outweigh the pros in a car, then if
you can find an honest mechanic like me, then you can make a wise decision on
whether to keep it or whether to get rid of it, but just make sure you have an
honest mechanic, because hey a lot of guys I know they look at that vehicle
and they'd see, oh we can make some serious money on this vehicle, and they tell the
customer, oh look it still rides nice, the leather seats inside are still in pretty
good shape, I think you should fix this thing up, knowing very well it's gonna
put a bunch of money into their pocket, so no on this Xterra, and from my experience
any nissan these days that has that kind of mileage, 13 years old, you don't want
to put too much money into the thing, because I have had customers that did
put too much money in, they either put in a transmission when it went out, or an
engine, and in many cases they used used engines or used transmissions, and about
a year later sometimes less, the engine would go out again, or the
transmission would go out again, and they threw good money after bad, so never
get emotional about your vehicle, be logical, and above all, either learn
how to do it yourself or find a mechanic like me, an honest guy that's gonna tell
you the truth about your machine, because sure sometimes the truth hurts, but if
you don't listen to the truth it can often hurt a lot more, so if you never
want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell