3.0litre turbo

the issue is with cracked pistons

mine had 3 cracked and 1 broken piston when stripped down

was still drivable at the time just spewing white smoke and is sounded like a little man was inside the engine with a sledgehammer

nissan supply new long motors and reuse your accessories.

due to new oil pressure sensors along with other changes , you also need a 2003 spec ECM and complete engine / ECM wiring loom installed
Nissan are obviously supplying this too.

the new engines have over 25 internal changes to the early series 2 motors. rebuilding the original engine will do little more than buy you extra time

basically if you have a series 3 (clear tail lights) you are safe.

regardless of how hard the vehicles are used or oil used, this problem is clearly due to an inherent design fault to have motors failing at such low kays...lotsa diesel 4WD motors get abused in various ways but still go for 3-500K kays...

i know of about 10+ so far, on avergae getting a call a fortnight from an owner with a blown motor

mine did 79,000kms , serviced by nissan and oil changed at 7-8000kms every time without fail.

new long motor supplied

i know of a 140,000km engine being replaced for free and one with lower kms but 6 months out of warrenty being done too.

Roly

Chris,
I tend to agree with Pathfinder - mine was serviced as per Manufacturer recommendations by Nissan dealers. Certainly any engine should be able to handle reasonable demands and some abuse. There are many motors of this size in the 2-3 tonne truck class which give sterling service and work a lot harder than your average fourby.

There is a fault which seems to have been rectified in the GU3, predominantly by changes to the oil gallery system. I have heard of many more than 15 - One govt dept in NW NSW had 13 at last count (not the police)

In other comments here I referred to Government & Police vehicles - I meant that they click up the K's faster and hence are amongst the first to be seen with problems. The GU2 was released May 2000 and the sump recall was in December 2000. Obviously there were some high milers that had failed by then.

The overboost noted could be something to do with blowback through the hole - mine went at 110kph on the freeway and it felt like the vehicle wanted to bolt for a while. The blow back would happen because the hole in the piston would be forcing air from the sump in on the downstroke for intake with the intake valves open. This could well overide the boost from the turbo. The initial symptom was a rattle like pinking and then the attempted bolt away. The motor continued to run albeit as Roly has described.

I would appreciate any comments regarding high mileage GU3's - there should be some around the 150k mark by now.

Pete G

GU2 came out in april 2000

mine is a march build and was ordered 2 week april on road 26th april 2000

sump recall was around october 2000, i had 20,000km on mine before sump increase done

VIN ???? 01730
Engine # ZD30037104A

Pete G,

Had mine since new in May, 18,000 km's now and no problems, happy as Larry. Have done 5k services and will continue to do so.

Regards,

Darren

Dont have to take it to dealer for servicing to get warranty
Mazda replaced a truck motor at 80000kms (60000kms out of warranty)
and I think from memory about a year out of the 12 month warranty at the time.
The owners had never had it serviced by us (the only local Mazda dealer at the time)that was along time ago though.
Also suspect it was the owner not changing the oil that caused the problem.

warrenty is warrenty, goodwill is different

in this case, nissan will supply a new engine under goodwill

to the letter of the law, the engine/vehicle is out of warrenty ( 3 years 100,000kms) and nissan is within it's legal rights to tell the owner that the bill for a new long motor to be fitted is around $17,000.

roly