Dear Nissan,

I still fucking hate you.

Love,

Gary

---

If it's not one thing, it's 1,350 others.

Ye ole Frontier failed inspection again this year (I don't think I've passed one since 2002, if anybody is keeping score). This time, it's a well-known Nissan Frontier/Xterra problem. A cracked passenger-side manifold. Apparently, this happens to nearly everybody who owns one of these trucks. The lucky ones have it happen within their vehicle's warranty period. The rest of us are shit outta luck, to the tune of "...anywhere between about $800 and $1,000...oh, and you need a new exhaust system too...that'll run you another $350".

I knew Nissan had issued a technical service bulletin out about this exact problem a number of years ago. Only problem with that is that it doesn't entitle owners to shit. It's simply a way for Nissan to tell their own technicians "Yeah, we made a shitty product. You're gonna have to support it. Here's what you gotta do". Big fucking help to the consumer. Thanks for that.

So I figured I'd write to Nissan North America's Consumer Affairs division and see if they had anything good they could tell me...

Greetings.

My 2000 Nissan Frontier recently failed our state safety inspection due to a cracked passenger-side manifold. I read online that there may have been a recall issued for this problem, or a class-action lawsuit settlement of some kind. Can you give me any details on either of these please? The repair is quite expensive, and apparently quite widespread in the Xterra/Frontier community.

Thank you.

-Gary R.

To which they replied in a most unhelpful way:

File # 6xxxxx3
VIN # 1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx7

Dear Mr. R Gary:

A review of our records indicates that the vehicle with the vehicle serial number listed above is involved in the recall as follows:

OPEN R0401 (W)D22 FUEL SND SLT NTB04062

Please contact your Nissan dealership for an appointment to have the recall repairs performed on your vehicle. These repairs are free of charge to you.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be of service.

Sincerely,

Nissan North America, Inc.

Arnel Gomez
Consumer Affairs Representative
National Consumer Affairs

Getting such a canned response pissed me off, so I wrote back saying...

Thanks for that nearly useless bit of information. Any chance you can tell me how to file a class-action lawsuit? Thanks!

-gary

I'll post back if they reply. Until then, allow me to say "Never again, Nissan. Never fucking again". If this truck weren't (just barely) paid off, I'd be on the way to CarMax instead of writing this post.

Where's my beer...