Nissan Navara D40 Diff problems....

geoff, My brother & myself purchased two D40 ST two years ago, took delivery together, he had done 25,000 k's when it started to blow real bad black smoke in 1st & 2nd gear on take-off, after a week it went into "Safe Mode", Nissan blamed the Turbo, fixed under warranty, still no power, so then it was the Catalytic converter, fixed under warranty, STILL no power, then it was the exhaust, Oh ! no stock in Oz, 5 weeks delivery from Spain, exhaust fitted problem FIXED !!! he has NEVER towed with his car, we use for work so they paid for a hire vehicle for the 6 weeks of the road, as for mine travelled 76,000 now, tow a Lotus full off road van, on dirt, gravel, & tar, never had any issue in any way, I have{do} keep it fully serviced & INSIST on the correct oil,
All that said, he made many many calls to Nissan call centre, same old story," It's being looked into sir"
So, next best thing--------he posted the problem with the car & Nissan on "FACEBOOK" the very next day things started to move.
A lot can be said for "Twitter & Facebook" it worked for him. But at the end of the day they {NISSAN} don't give a RATS.
Hope you have a result geoff, good luck

cheers
Redbacks

I remember a few years back where a young lady had a picture of a lemon printed on a large board and sat in on the top of the car in front of dealership to get some action for her lemon car. Now that cant be good for sales, especially in tough times like now.. That could really do some damage.. Michael

Why? Actually makes sense to me to have cooling fins. I fitted an air locker to my D40 a couple of weeks after I got the car. All still going strong 70000km later. It has done about half of this off the bitumen and often towing my 1.4 tonne campertrailer......and still no problems other than those caused from getting tankful of water contaminated diesel.....and even those weren't serious as I had a water watch fitted previously.

Plenty of sites devoted to D40 bonnet catches, door handles, wiring looms, diffs. I'm assuming the diffs ran hot and in typical nissan fashion they added cooling fins rather than fix the problem. Much like cutting an inch off a dipstick on the zd30. Call me cynical but I don't think they put the coolers on to 'make a better 4wd'.
I'm glad you've had good service from yours. Our company D40 made it to 22000 kms before sitting at a dealer's for 9 weeks waiting for a new wiring loom because the factory one was too short and sawed through on the firewall - It had NEVER been offroad. The bonnet catch 'fix' was a tailgate catch screwed into the bonnet to act as a secondary for when the main one lets go. I raced nissan 4wd's, but I'll never own another one.

Yeah you're right gbc there are sites where there is a constant whinge but if you go to the Navara Forum I think you will struggle to find and real issue among the guys and gals who actually own these vehicles. If you go over to Prado Point or NewHilux or NewTriton etc etc you will find just as many bleats. IMHO some people just can't help themselves but these really squeaky wheels also tend to make it more difficult for folks who have genuine issues. If there are serious and ongoing problems then there is always the lemon laws to try and use. From my point of view I think all modern vehicles have problems and most of this I believe is related to the extremely close tolerance and new fangled engineering required to meet emission standards.......especially if the vehicle is built in or to European build standards.
Mt 20 cents worth.....for what it is worth.

I can't be too specific. As a standard user i merely was told by nissan that they found metal filings in the diff and that it must have be caused by shock. They did mention the crown wheel but wouldnt go into any specifics. I assume to cover their bum incase i can get a mechanic to say otherwise?

Sounds to me like it needs a re race . Broken to me is when there are teeth broken off the crown wheel and pinion , or when the cross or teeth in the differential is broken , not just a bearing replacement .
Have you got kids or an apprentice that drives, they are the best at breaking dads car .

By some of the comments about Colorado's lately, they are not too far behind.. Michael

By all accounts you are right Michael, but as we do not run any of theses I am not qualified to comment on them.
Its a shame Nissan has lost the plot , as I have a friend who clocked up 540000ks from a petrol maverick, virtually with no major issues except a big fuel bill, and god only knows how long a good well maintained 4.2 Diesel would last.
Cheers Pete