Different material? Larger link? or totally different control arm (different geometry)? Just wondering if anybody has seen the two side by side.

 

Hmm..Good question. I should call 1-800-NISSAN1 and find out.

 

Just had this recall done on my wifes car. I think it is just different material (dlr told me so) but when I got it back I swear the turning cirle has improved!?!!!?? Geometry? Anybody else have this done and notice the same? Even my wife (a girl noticed?? hee hee ) noticed the difference. I went and asked but the dealer said impossible. Oh well, I feel it, now they need to fix the alignment since it came back screwed. Of course they denied that replacing the control arms would affect the alignment. They'll be fixing it though. Went in straight, came out crooked. Maybe they were jumping curbs with it.

 

...Absolutely this recall changes the alignment. If you have a service guy telling you that no alignment is necessary for this recall then take it to a different dealership and never go back there again, their service techs are obviously morons.

 

 

you know Sno, I think you are right. The turn radius has improved when they installed the new transverse link. Not much but yes a little
I did not believe it at first but tried a few turns that I normally could not make. I have not seen any mention of this improvement until now.

 

I had mine replaced a week ago and the dealer never did an alignment. My car is tracking dead straight. I don't believe an alignment is needed. I even spent the hour watching the tech do the work.

As far as the turning circle being smaller (or changed at all) - not a chance, IMO. The pieces looked identical sitting on the floor of the shop. The tech told me that the new links are supposed to have better bushings for the stabilizer link. Everything feels tighter up front, but that's about it.

Albert

 

My new one squeeks and occasionaly I hear a small bang when comming to a stop I'm to lazy to take it back though..

 

Had the recall done to my 2k2 and the car came back pulling to the right. Morons! Anyone idiot knows the car is going need an alignment when the lower control arm is removed!!!

Jesse

 

I just got my car done this morning... no alignment and the car tracks straight and the service writer said I could come back if I think it needed an alignment. And the steering also feels tighter, like theres better steering response

 

I had mine done last Saturday. No alignment and the car tracks straight. I agree with the tighter feel. My car had a weird vibration on certain bumps in the road. When I hit a certain size bump there was a vibration transmitted to the wheel that felt like something was loose. On all other surfaces (even washboard) the vibration was not there.

After the recall the steering feels solid all the time.

 

...I think what a lot of you guys might not realize is that the service department is doing an alignment as part of the process of the control arm replacement and since it is a free recall service you are just not aware of it. My service manager made it very clear when mine was done: this recall involves a wheel alignment as part of the service. That is why most of you are tracking straight after having control arms replaced. Just because you didn't do the alignment yourself doesn't mean it wasn't done. Ask your service department...

 

I had the service done last Friday. The manager said right up front that the work would include an alignment. I haven't noticed anything about the turning radius...of course, I haven't pulled any emergency ueys lately, either

 

As stated in my previous post, I watched the tech do the entire job. There is NO WAY he did an alignment. Even if I didn't watch him, how could they do the removal, reinstallation and alignment in 1 hour? Can't be done. Many people that have had this work done have been out in an hour. My tech took an hour and he had a b!tch of a time removing the part from the passenger side.

My car tracked perfectly before taking it in for the work so it's not like there was a 'huge' improvement in the work they did. Just a better on-center feel in the wheel and less shudder in the suspension over bad bumps (ie - sunken manhole covers). Unfortunately, I think the shudder is returning, as well as a slight noise in the left side suspension. Sounds very much like it did before I had the stabilizer links replaced a few months ago. Only noticeable at low speed over an incline/descent of some sort like the entrance to a steep driveway.

Albert

 

What "tests" should I perform to tell if I need to have this TSB done? What are the symptoms?

I hate taking my car to the dealer, so I need to know whether it's worth having done or not.

I do notice a suspension creak every now and then, mostly when it's cool out and I go slowly over a speed bump, so I just figured it was nothing to worry about. Also, the suspension has always been VERY rough over any type of surface even extremely small surface cracks, but I just figured that's what you get with the SE suspension and crappy Protendzas.

Will this help any with the ride quality?

Thanks.

 

...The most important thing to realize is this is a recall, not a TSB. You should get it done if your vehicle is affected. It is not life and death, but call your service dept. and give them your VIN to see if you are affected.

 

Would i need to take off my FSTB before going in? I know it has nothing to do with it but i just don't want them to go taking it off and risk breaking the bolts.

 

Mne does that too. Not always but sometime when I drive out of my driveway onto my little hill I can hear it.

Any 6spds have a wierd noise when they start their car real slow? Not the Squirrel one, but a sound like a top spinning out and stopping??? I love describing noises.

 

Nissan's Flagship

[rant]

Recalls of this magnitude on a 3 year old design are inexcusable. Thank God for this place or else many here would just be in the dark.


I can't believe Nissan expects to do things halfass and have people be repeat buyers in the future.....

Innocent rattles have turned into transmissions and suspension parts. It's real sad.

[/rant]

It actually does appear Nissan is making an effort towards improving "Customer Care", but still has a ways to go.

 

It was a recall for me. Not a TSB. I received the letter in the mail and a couple of days later all was fixed. Check the TSB stickie at the top of the 5th gen forum. In there is a link to the actual Recall Notice on Nissan's site. It lists the VIN range affected.

EDIT OK, so I have some time here at work (I went and looked it up in the stickie) goto:
http://www.nissandriven.com/owning/R...,9428,,00.html enter your particulars and away your go /EDIT

Albert

 

Thanks.

 

Take it in to the dealer and tell them the symptoms. My dealer never even wanted to drive it. Just knew what it was and said that it's common amongst cars that get lots of miles on them in a hurry. I asked him if I can look forward to replacing them regularly (my car only had about 20,000 kms) He said that mine was the earliest he's seen it happen to, but reassured me that I shouldn't have any other problems with it. Oh, well. Maybe it's another part in the suspension making that sound now, but somehow I doubt it.

Not mine. The tranny has been super quiet. Did hear a sound similar to what I would call a dying squirrel, but that was when I let a co-worker from Ottawa drive my car. He's got a GTP and I think it was quite a while since he drove standard as he promptly over revved the car and slipped the clutch waaayyyyy to long. I had to slap him and explain it's not short on bottom end torque. He got the idea after a few moments.

Albert

 

Took my 2k2 Max in 3 weeks ago for 3month service and the Suspension recall, The front end seemed a lot tighter and the turning circle did improve for me. I could actually get into a parking space on the first attempt. The dealership was excellent.

However, I decided to wash the car a couple of days later and as I was driving off after washing it the ABS light came on and you could feel the braking was different. My guess is a dodgy sensor not quite on properly or something after the repair and water gets in and freaks out the monitoring which shuts it down. It was fine the next day, but as the car was still dirty I washed it again and then the ABS light came back on again.

Just trying to find the time to get it back to the dealer.

 

You need to have this done for safety purposes. This is a recall, not a TSB. My letter said the old piece make break. Get it done. It's a two-hyour job. ---FRank

 

Frank,

Thanks for the advice, but if it's a "2hr job" it will be more than a week and multiple trips to my local dealership. That's if they can do it right the first time.

It took them 4-days to do a simple "30-min" ECU TSB.

I haven't been notified yet, but I will look into it to see if my VIN # applies.

 

Seems that there are 2 different letters out on this subject. The one I got didn't say anything about the possibility of it breaking. The letter at the nissan site (referenced earlier in this thread) is different from the one that I got. It never suggested that this was an emergency type of fix at all. Just said to make an appt. as soon as is convenient.

I wonder if it's gotten worse since they sent out the original letters? How long ago did you get your letter, Frank? I would check mine, but the dealer kept it when I went to have the work performed on my car.

Albert

 

Hey Stevieboy! I had the same problem too!!! After the suspension recall, I washed my car and then my ABS light came on and my brakes felt a little weird. After that my ABS light hasn't came on. I'm wondering if I wash my car again if my ABS light will go on.

 

There are a few other threads about the ABS sensor on the forum. they mentioned a clunking noise which I could actually feel throught the Auto shifter when almost at a stop.

There is a lot of speculation about left-hand side sensors being the problem, but still worth getting it checked out ABS does come in very handy with all of the crazies on the road.

 

My VIN falls into this recall...so far, no letter or notification from Nissan. The site says it affects 67,000 vehicles I just can't imagine the dealerships handling this kind of a workload. It will take them at least a year (maybe a year and half) to do this. That's about 16,000 eight hour workdays.

 

How do you figure that? There must be at least 1000 dealerships in the US mainland. That's roughly 1,000 cars/dealership. Each service bay capable of handling at least 10 cars at a time. At 1.5hrs/car x 10 cars at a time that would come out to roughly 53 cars a day. At that rate it'll take them less than a month to service all of them.

(Please recheck my calculations, i may be off somewhere)

Anyway, as far the notice goes. Just set an appointment with your service manager. They'll fix it as long as your car is affected by it.

p.s. when i came in for my service, they said only 4 people have had their recall done to date.

 

Mike, you're assuming that the dealers are going to stop working on all the other service they provide to just do the recall. You know that will never happen.
Anyway, I called my dealership and spoke with the service rep and when I asked if an alignment was part of the recall...she was clueless. She said that their dealership has done a few...but like you mentioned, it seems that most folks are ignoring this.
The real question is: out of the 67,000 Maximas it affects, how many actually had a transverse link break? 50? 70? 2,000? Nissan should release that number.

 

I had the work done. No I feal no special performance effect. I do feel less road bumps. I feel nothing in the wheel now after getting this done. I used to feel the road, I don't like the numb feeling now. My turning radiase has not improved, ok, maybe by an inch or MM. But no one is going to see some major Audi-like turning radius from this work.

The dealership did do an alignmnet on my car though, so at least they did some thing right.

 

I need to go back to the dealership to get my alignment done. They just did my re-call work. My car pulls to the right. Damn bastards!

 

augie,
What we need is a copy of what NISSAN has told the dealers to do. Hopefully within the tech instructions it states "Perform a front end alignment upon completion of replacing the links/correcting the deficiency." When it's on paper, you can hold them to it!!!!!!
And I would still like to know how many vehicles experienced this problem...if the number is very small then this is not a big deal and NISSAN is just doing this to cover their "rear-end."

Has anyone on the forum had a knocking sound/abnormal steering problem????

 

I didn't. Maybe I should of left it alone. :X

 

augie, my co-workers have told me that they've ignored recalls on their cars until they get the symptoms. I may just do that. I have very low mileage right now (about 1,700 miles), so maybe I'll wait until I hear that "knocking sound" or experience the "abnormal steering." I hate taking the car into the dealership unless it is absolutely essential (I just changed the oil/filter myself a couple of weeks ago..."6 month" old oil since the vehicle was built in Japan back in December...obviously I didn't do it for mileage reasons). I'm sure that when I take her in for some other maintenance (e.g. coolant flush/fill) they'll push to replace the links.

I'll bet that the ones that did experience a failure of the transverse links happened on some Maximas who have owners that drive on "Baja" style roads daily.

 

Had recall done yesterday, service advisor said tech is paid 1.5 hours for recall and that he usually runs a little over due to time to complete alignment. car was in shop 2 1/4 hours, I didn't watch but sevice write up states "campaign r20060 rpl both traverse links and adj wheel alignment". dealer is a small dealer, serice manager has been great in the past said they have done 12 with no damage to any original parts.

 

I received my letter about two weeks ago and took it right in. --Frank

 

i picked up my car this week and just found out about the recall...you think they did the job to the car since it was already in the lot....kinda feeling lazy to have to bring it in AGAIN.

marco

 

I know my Max is affected by the recall. Should I be ****ed I haven't gotten a notice yet? I did get it done already at another dealer, but I expected the notice by now.