What Nissan is doing is WRONG. There is a serious design flaw with the radiators which means ALL 2005-2007 Pathfinders, and auto-tranny Frontiers and XTerras WILL have their radiator fail and WILL destroy their transmissions. This is NOT an "oh well only some very few will have issues" thing, NO, *ALL* of them will die, it is purely a matter of time.
The ONLY right thing for Nissan to do is create a NEW fixed part number radiator, recall all the bad radiators, and inspect transmissions. However so far all they've done is a totally chickenshit minor warranty extension and downright evil part-number-change'less fix to radiator to keep everything under wraps.
A little googling turned up some attempts to get a class action lawsuit going, some attempts to get safety reports into NHTSA, but I don't see much traction. I think the problem is that all of us here on the Internet are in an echo chamber. Yet another post/FAQ/Blog about this problem isn't going to help much. We need to get the information OUT there to the masses to have any hope of helping people and getting Nissan to come clean with their customers.
So, here we are, the biggest Pathfinder forum on the Net, and it's past time we took action. Here's what I propose:
1: I order up a new simple easy to remember domain name, like nissantransmissionfail.com or whatever, and aim it at 2.
2: Set up a new targeted forum thread specifically for this issue. Have some concise FAQ information on the problem and how to deal with and report it. Have a Poll to collect information on how many people have problems. And ask people to post their personal fact based rant-free experiences with this problem and how Nissan did or did not resolve it for them.
3: Find a good online business card printing firm, create a business card template we can all use with the new URL and brief info on the problem.
4: Print batches of cards and start leaving them on the windshield of every single R51 Pathfinder/Frontier/XTerra you see in a parking lot, used car lot, etc. Hell, leave 3 so they can pass the word...
5: The Nissan Path does bring in a few dollars from the Google adds, so I'll sew that back into this cause by donating $100/month to reimburse people via Paypal for their business card orders.
6: Spread the word to other XTerra and Frontier forums to get more Nissan user communities involved.
7: If we start getting some serious traction, start trying to get some main-stream media coverage of the campaign.
This CAN work. When I had my old Murano the forum members finally created enough ruckus about failing alternators that Nissan had a full-on recall. Thoughts folks? What do you say?
