gu patrol gear box

Bill. My brother-in-law has the same car as you and we have just had the same conservation based on the rumours and hear-say my brother-in-law has heard on the grape vine, so we went to our local Nissan dealer and asked. The reply was that they have very little problem with them in this area and certainly no more trouble than they have with their Isuzu range. The service manager said it was important to only travel in 5th gear at high speeds and that labouring the car at low speeds in 5th is what does the damage. Hope this helps.

We had a work one that would've been about that age and build k's I can't remeber and we had a couple of prob's including the gearbox it went during the warranty and he gearbox was repaired once and later,not much, was replaced when it happened again. It wouldn't go into 5th and the other gear changes were feeling suss but drivable.
The other problems were with the fuel tanks (had a sub) the lockable caps would lock on or not lock. alo the filler tube near the tank end had some sort of flap (I assume to stop slosh going up the filler while driving) and it would get stuck closed and was a real pain in the ass, we would get coat hangers and try to fiddle it open enough to get fuel to get into town and another warranty visit, read HASSLE.
Hope it helps and good luck.

If there was a suspect range, it could be in it ;).... it seems to be more in the 3.0's than 4.2 for some reason.

There have been half dozen on the patrol list go, one bloke had 2ice go.

But when you think of how many thousand get sold, its F'all problem...

if it goes, THEN you have a problem, its Lots expensive to fix. :(

Bill,

I think you will find that the majority of GU Patrol gearbox failures were due to excessive abuse of some kind. Like the others have stated, it is mainly due to using 5th gear at very low speeds, or whilst towing a heavily laden trailer of some description using the 5th gear.

IMHO, it is much better to let a motor rev a little, rather than labouring it all the time, as long as, of course, you don't ring it out in every gear, every time.

The gearbox is very robust, as it was in the GQ, and I think that is evidenced by the ammount of GU's out on the competition circut, with very few driveline mods. I know of a certain Winch Challenge competitor, whose TD42T GU puts out around 160kw, and has covered 80k, most of which, so I am told, was in competition, and he, apparently, has had NO troubles whatsoever with the box, and the vehicle in general.

If you use a vehicle the way it was intended, keep it well serviced, and treat it kindly, I can't see any reason why you shouldn't get many many years of trouble free service from it.

Tristjo.

Bill, I have GU TD 42, built date September 1999. During my return from an extended trip in far north SA I detected a very faint whine at around 110K in 5th gear. After removing the 7.50 x 16's and putting back the 10.5 x 16's the extra road noise was enough to hide the whine.
Took the car to my local Nissan dealer and was told that the build date did not fall within the build dates the fault was occuring in. A test drive did not show up any noise however, to the dealership's credit they drained the g/b to reveal the tell tale orange discolouration of the oil which they told me is a characteristic "side effect" of this fault. Car was out of warranty but repaired at no cost.
I understand that the whine can get progressively worse in a very short time, particularly during heavy towing in 5th gear. However, if detected early, avoiding the use of that gear will avoid further damage.

There is definitely a problem with the GU 5th gear but it is unclear if there is a build date range of affected vehicles or the problem is still there. One of our work GU 4.2TD's has just been done after dropping 5th gear on an all day high speed run from Derby to Pt Hedland. It had done 38,000km with a lot of high speed, high temp highway running. I know the driver and his driving style pretty well and would say he is not guilty of pushing it a low speeds in 5th (plenty of drivers are of course).

One of the Nissan service agents up here has allegedly now repaired over 100 gearboxes, many I know were Telstra and NDC vehicles which I know get a pretty hard life, are heavily loaded and have plenty of unsympathetic drivers.

My GU has done 35,000km in the same conditions as my colleagues and my local service guy is adamant that 5th will pop in due course. Build date is around June 2002.

I understand they fail in various ways, but usually 5th just suddenly ceases to drive but all other cogs remain working. Others have told me that down changes from 5th to 4th become difficult when the problem is looming.

I would expect few would fail in the hands of careful owner drivers.

BTW, all the Tojo's up here driven in similar conditions don't have this sort of problems but have plenty of problems with worn seals and bearings in the whole drive train it's just that it happens more slowly with no sudden failures.

I would still back the Nissan drive trains for long term trouble free life (with regular maintenance)

JohnS
Derby, WA

THANK YOU GENTS, FOR THE MANY RESPONCES.
STILL UNCLEAR BUT AM UNDER THE OPINION THAT DRIVING HABITS AND CONDITION MAY BE A FACTOR. AS I DON,T THRASH THE BEAST AND WHEN TOWING A VAN REMAIN IN 4TH, THIS SHOULD REDUCE THE CHANCES OF FAILURE.. THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR HELP...

My uncle had a 98 or 99 model Patrol wagon (not sure what engine, think it was a diesel)

But I do know he went through 3 (yes three) manual gearboxes. 3rd gear was the issue I think.

He drives like an old lady so it wasn't his drivibg style and he NEVER took it off the black stuff.

All were replaced under warranty, 1st one they had to rip out of a vehicle on the floor (no spares were in Oz), they never even got to fit the new one to the shop car, by the time it got here from Japan my uncle's gearbox blew again.

I have an earlier GQ and tow a van and boat in fifth ALL the time...(except up hills! -because it can't)
They are the toughest gearboxes in their class, by far!
There is however a small period when there was a machining problem on splines on the fifth gear- there is a lot about this in some of the forums, eg: yahoo. (Don't know the affected dates.)
My Cousin is on his fourth TD42, all been turbo'd, all been thrashed WITH a big load, all towed with fifth gear, all traded in or sold to friends at high klms (350,000k ++) and none have ever had a single mechanical problem. Zero, zilch, zip) One he sold to one of his staff now has over 600,000 kays!
That's reliability...