The Nissan Path

I bought a 2009 Pathfinder for my wife last year. I'm used to doing my own oil changes, brakes, plugs, and fluid exchanges on things like tranny, transfer case and diffs after doing them on my Ram and her old Durango for years. With winter coming I thought it mkight be a good idea to take a look and get start getting it ready. I grabbed my tools, backed the truck up onto the ramps (I have a slight slope to my driveway and it works very well for doing diffs), dropped the spare for a little extra head room, and......WTF?!?!?!

Whoever designed the rear end of this truck certainly didn't do it for easy maintenance! When I do a rear diff, I want to drop off the pan and visually inspect the gears inside so I can see if there's anything going on in there I don't like, and then take proactive steps to ensure it doesn't calve on me on the side of the road somewhere. On this thing I will have to dismantle a fair bit of hardware to do that. Does anyone have a DIY for that....or an alternative?

On a side note, it looks like my wife's truck is suffering from differential bushing wear as well. It was very well cared for by the PO with lots of recent invoices and records, but it has 112,000 MILES on it so things will need to be done. Is there a DIY for that without removing the cross-member from the truck too? I saw where soimebody has a fix for that on the 370Z...just curious if anyone has that nailed down for our Pathy's too.


Thanks in advance for any input!

From my perspective, I use the fluid as an indicator as to whether more action is required. Metal filings, really dirty oil, etc.

On my rear diff, I discovered a plugged vent line which caused the seals to start seaping fluid. Once I replaced the vent line, all was fine.

280k km on this truck.