2005 Nissan Pathfinder

[andybisnut]

Hi guys,

Just saying hi -- I've got a black 2005 Nissan Pathfinder SE Offroad. It's the workhorse of our family -- my wife uses it as the daily driver / kid hauler / errand doer. When we go up north (it's a Minnesota thing) or on trips, we always take the Pathy.

We picked it up with about 64K on the odometer, and now she's just about to turn over the 100K mark. I haven't had any real issues with it except:

-ECM relay failed. Replaced at a local dealership for free (under recall).

-The dreaded shuddering (felt like driving over rumble strips), which turned out to be the infamous coolant leaking into the transmission issue. Took it to a local mechanic at the first sign of shudder. Presence of coolant was causing the tranny to shudder when trying to engage overdrive. Mechanic flushed the heck out of the tranny, put in a new radiator, and used a fluid called "shudder fix." Knock on wood - so far the tranny has been OK. Not sure if I was lucky, or I will have tranny problems later, but it has been shifting smooth as can be for 15K miles or more.

-Awful squealing noise coming from the engine at certain RPMs. Like, you could hear it if you were following the Pathy in another vehicle. Turned out to be a faulty fan clutch. Replaced fan clutch and the squealing went away.

So, I might change my story if the tranny fails, but this Pathy has been good to us. Always starts up nice and quick, feels nice and tight ... and it gets driven in a city setting - lots of stop and go, etc. Nice power from the 4L V6. Really good in MN winters with 4WD engaged. Overall I like this SUV a lot. Gas mileage kind of sucks, but it's what I expected. I don't care for the crossover (2013) but I'd buy another one in this body style.

I've always done regular oil changes with a synthetic high mileage blend. On my to-do list for August:

-New spark plugs
-Fuel filter
-Oil change

[iheartmypathy]

i have an 05 as well, and had the same issue with the tranny. got a new radiator, but the tranny still failed and needed to be replaced. hope that yours was caught in time before it did major damage!

welcome to the forum!

[andybisnut]

i have an 05 as well, and had the same issue with the tranny. got a new radiator, but the tranny still failed and needed to be replaced. hope that yours was caught in time before it did major damage!

welcome to the forum!

Thanks iheartmypathy. I too hope that we caught the radiator/trans issue in time. The weird thing is, there was also tranny fluid in the coolant. So the two were inter-mixing.

Did your tranny fail immediately, or was it a gradual failure? What were the symptoms of the failure? Just want to know if I should be watching for anything (even though a tranny failure will be obvious, lol).

Here's hoping. So far so good....

[deermjd]

There is not a fuel filter to replace on these vehicles. One less thing on your to-do list.