1993 Nissan Hardbody Pickup from North America - Comments

4x4 stopped working after 30,000 km

Speedometer cable broke after 30,000 km

Tachometer stopped working after 80,000 km

Dash and roof interior cracked and ripped after 120,000 kms

Leaking rear drive shaft seal at 130,000 km

Timing chain guide broke at 140,000 km costing $3,000.00 Cdn to fix.

This car has been good for reliability and I quite like the interior layout, the crisp and logical function of all the controls. The handling is also sweet as this truck corners as if it were on rails which is odd considering it is a 4x4. It also looks awesome.

My problems with this truck are the poor gas mileage of app 22 miles per UK Gallon on the highway and the dismal acceleration when passing. The highways are getting so crowded now that I think I need a better car. The space between oncoming traffic is getting so small I can't pass anymore!

My biggest grief was obviously with the timing chain guide. What a fiasco! The truck starts rattling like a diesel one day as I'm driving along. I bring it in to the dealer for repairs and return in the evening a few days later after work. The bill on the seat is ~$1,500 for taking the engine apart and replacing the timing chain and guides. I start the car and it still makes the same noise! The bill indicates the engine top had been short of oil and I may yet have to replace the lifters, but I should drive it for a while. I drive it and it still makes racket. I've had trouble with this dealer before so I bring my truck to another place and they replace the lifters and charge another ~$900. The truck still rattles like a diesel. The two dealers speak and decide to take the engine apart again. They found a plastic piece (probably from the timing chain guide) stuck in an oil port. Another $600 bill. Now I have a $3000 engine job and my truck still rattles cause the new lifters were short of oil before the plug was found and removed. Good grief! I can't believe there are no other reviews with this trouble as a buddy of mine indicated that replacing these lousy plastic guides is a popular item in the garage.

I've also have experienced the mishaps of the timing chain guide, which has cost me greatly. It started when the guide went bad and causing the chain to wear a hole in the housing. I sent it to a shop for repair, and decided since it had a 137,000 and begun to smoke a little when left idling for a while, to have the engine rebuild. The engine still had pretty good compression before this occurred. Needless to say I spent over a $1000.00 to get my engine rebuilded, but instead they switched my engine out with a junked one. The engine ran for 5months before the guide was gone in that engine which lead me to have another timing chain replaced, that cost me another $250.00.

My 97 XE 4X4 had 131,000 miles and I decided to replace the original chain. I'm in auto mechanics in high school, so I did it myself. It cost a $100 for all parts needed including oil and filter. I got the job done in about 2 days working about 2.5 hours a day. I skipped many of the unessecary steps to replace it like jacking up the engine and unbolting the motor mounts and taking out the oil pan. It runs fine and now has 132,189 miles. Great truck except for lifter noise{occured before chain replace} and bad gas mileage{10MPG} I beat on it though a lot.

I cannot help with the timing chain, but with the lifter noise my mechanic told me that it is dirt in the lifters. The way to clean the lifters out is... when you do an oil change, replace 1 litre of engine oil with transmission fluid! Drive as normal changing oil at your regular interval. I thought my mechanic was crazy. He said the transmission oil is a high pressure lube and will clean the lifters out. He was right. My Nissan purrs like a kitten! Good luck! Steve.

I did want to add it's 1 litre of automatic transmission fluid to your engine oil change to clean out the lifters. Steve.

OK.. so as far as the diesel noise happening.. I just had that problem with my truck. It just so happened that my truck didn't have any oil in the engine at all. All that needed to be done, was to pour 2 quarts of 10w-30 oil in to it with a half a quart of automatic transmission fluid.. odd as it may sound, the tranny fluid acts as a detergent for the interior of the engine.. after it is all in, let the truck run for about 10 minutes, holding it at about 2,500 rpm for a minute and a half after the first 5 minutes, then just continue to let it idle.. the noise should start to subside.. drive the truck for the next day like you normally do. Then MAKE SURE TO CHANGE THE OIL THE NEXT NIGHT WITH A NEW OIL FILTER.. your problem should be solved, if it doesn't then your hydraulic lifters have gone bad..