The Nissan Path

I've been looking into this for a while now. Trying to figure out why there is such a big difference in the number of radiator failures between 2005 and 2006/2007 years. Specifically, the 2005s having the highest rate of failure.
This cant be due to the age as all have approx. same milage, and you dont expect to see such a drastic difference in failed radiators for cars built a year apart.
according to carcomplains, there were 248 cases of failed radiators for 2005 pathfinders while only around 38-42 for 2006 and 2007 ones.
You will see the same pattern for Xterras and Frontiers.
so it appears that for 2006, nissan changed the radiator design which reduced, but not eliminated the problem...
Is there a way to track 2005's radiator part numbers and compare it to those in 2006/2007s?

Failures of this nature are related to number of heating/cooling cycles of the radiator, and less about the actual mileage to failure.

Without any concrete evidence, either a part number change (which did not happen until 08), or a bulletin from Nissan that tells us the affected population and cut-in of improvements (which they have not done), we can only make blind assumptions based on our limited observations on a small sample of the total population.

All that would change if this thing went NHTSA, at which point Nissan would be compelled to provide at least the affected population info.

Well known problem. One class action suit settled but NHTSA is the important part in this nightmare for thousands of owners to create a recall. NHTSA is already investigating this but there needs to be a lot more reporting as to the very unsafe nature of the failures. In our case we were in heavy traffic at around 40 MPH when our SUV suddenly lurched forward. Thankfully my husband managed to get it under control or it would have been a horrible mess. This is something I wrote recently on an Anti Nissan facebook page. NHTSA only looks at the safety issues for recalls so complaining about losing $6000.00 is not what they will look at in determining a recall.
I also pasted the below message on this site: http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct ... 00#MSG1100. There are thousands of us out there.

Just a reminder as to how important it is to report the transmission/radiator problems to NHTSA. Concentrate on the safety issues if you were driving during this occurrence, or even fear of what could have happened if you were in traffic at the time.

Safety is what creates recalls, which leads to getting the transmission, radiator and anything related taken care of at no cost. And hopefully reimbursement for those of us stuck with these unsafe lemons. The more complaints they get that are safety related the better.

Also be careful in reporting it http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/complaints/index.cfm to use these components as this is what NHTSA is doing the investigation on. The top two seem to have the largest number of complaints but there are some connected with the engine and cooling system so NHTSA is not getting the full picture of the number of complaints.

Component(s) :
POWER TRAIN
POWER TRAIN:AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION
POWER TRAIN:AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION:CONTROL MODULE (TCM, PCM)
POWER TRAIN:AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION:COOLING UNIT AND LINES
POWER TRAIN:AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION:TORQUE CONVERTER

This is one of at least two lawsuits against Nissan. This one was settled recently but it still does not take care of the problem, only allows Nissan to slide a bit without having to take full responsibility and they still end up with thousands of dollars while we pay thousands to fix a well known serious and dangerous problem they've known about for years and yet continued to build these vehicles for at least five years.

From a previous post:

Has anyone seen this? Nissan has settled on one of the class action suits. Not too bad depending on how tough times are but to get reimbursed it appears you need to be part of the class action suit, and then forward on for future repairs and replaced parts you have to pay $2500 to $3000 as a co-pay. I also suspect for reimbursement they have a set amount they will pay, on top of your co-pay.

From what we've seen $5000 to $6000 is average, in our case we paid $6000. I would not be surprised if they set an amount such as $4000, we pay $2500 to $3000 and we are still screwed.

And this still does not address the huge safety issues. Nissan is still trying to skate a huge well known problem they should have taken care of years ago. I am still all for a recall by the government to force them to fix every dangerous vehicle on the road, or off in those cases.

http://www.nissanassist.com/web/Radiato ... hp?menu=22.

Class action suit info is at the bottom. They clearly are hoping to make it appear they are doing this out of the loyalty to their customers instead of a lawsuit.

Even though Nissan has officially fixed the Lawsuit by paying settlement, but its a moral duty for them to look into actual matter and make improvements because ultimately its a question of Company's image as well that's going down owing to serious problems.