Moggs replied:

Hi Craig,

Yep, a common problem in Series 1 GU's. Good thing though is there is no issue in driving it in 4th once 5th is gone. What year Patrol is it? If Nissan don't proovide you with any good will your likely up for the better part of 3k.

I have a 99 GU with 104,000kms on the clock. Just waiting for mine to go one day soon.....LOL!

Hope the rest of your fathers day is ok!

Motherhen replied:

Bad luck - sure hope you got better present for Dad's day. I recently caught up with my girlfriend from my school days and we compared notes about our Patrols and caravans. She and her husband towed a fairly light caravan with a 2000 3 ltr, and although only rarely towed in 5th, were in 5th on an easy slightly downward slope when 5th went.

If one gear has gone, metal shavings will be circulating, and will do damage to your other gears. Without knowing the condition inside the gearbox, it is a guess as to whether you should drive the distance or have it trucked home. Either way, it sounds like it will cost. Don't drink heavily - you'll need every dollar!

In our case, all gears went with one sudden bang in our Landcruiser when we were around 300 kms from home with a newly purchased stud ram on the back. We had to call our son for help. A lot of running around in the night to hire a trailer, bring the Cruiser home then to a workshop in another town next morning. We still had to go back for the ram when it was fixed. Quite a few hundreds of kms, and quite a few thousand $s. In our family's experience, Nissan gearboxes have proved a better bet than Cruisers, but will most likely be as expensive to repair.

We don't tow heavy loads in 5th (or overdrive in autos).

Member - craig W (NSW) replied:

Thanks heaps guys,gives me a little Ammo for when i call Val in the morning at nissan. At least i now know that it wasnt me being to hard on the old girl! i,ll keep posted on my outcome!!
Shakey..

Member - Dunworkin (WA) replied:

Hi craigW, just before our last trip we had a bearing that sounded suspect in our gear box so got it replaced and the gear box serviced, at the same time we had the 5th gear upgraded even though we had not had any problem with it. Cost about 3grand all up but can now tow in 5th (hopefully), we never towed in 5th previously because of the reputation the GU gearbox had but you could tell by the sound of the motor it wanted to go up that extra gear at times.

Hope you get home OK

Cheers

D

Trevor R (QLD) replied:

Shakey,

I will add my car to the list of GU's with 5th gear failure. I had no help from Nissan, but I didn't expect too much from them as I had 270 on the clock. If you do want to drive on, I would give the g/box a good flush out and put fresh oil in before I went anywhere.

Good luck with it and as Roachie has suggested, there is good aftermarket upgrades that you can do while you are in that region fixing things if Nissan don't want to cover your costs.

Cheers, Trevor.

Member - Robyn J (QLD) replied:

Nissan stopped coming to the party over 2 years ago. We did ours coming home from 17,000 trip to WA and back to Qld. Did it on the last day and frove about 500ks using only gears 1 to 4. The only help Nissan gave us was a reduced labour cost so it ended up costing at $2000.
Cheers
Jenkie