To Infiniti- and hopefully not beyond for quite a while... (2002 Infiniti QX4 DD)

So, after much hemming and hawing and light clashing of wills between SWMBO and I, we decided on and bought a new (to us) daily driver & occasional semi-offroad vehicle for me.

For quite a while I've primarily had project vehicles- since I sold my Saturn sedan some 3 1/3 years or so ago I've just picked up vehicles either to fix up, drive, and sell or as Challenge cars. I've not bought something that I could just get into and drive away in without doing a thing to it since, well, in reality since I bought that Saturn new 18 years ago. So, this is a bit of a change- and admittedly not a wholly unwelcome one.

The new vehicle is a 2002 Infiniti QX4 SUV. It's Infiniti's version of the same-year Nissan Pathfinder (R50), so it's powered by a 3.5L VQ35DE V-6 engine and has an AWD/4WD system (can operate in RWD, AWD, or locked center differential 4Hi or 4Lo) and a solid ground clearance. It's comparable in many respects to SWMBO's 2008 Mariner, though clearly intended as more of a luxury SUV than hers with heated (front AND back) leather seats and faux wood-grain finishes. We liked it because it seemed like it would be a nice blend of what we were looking for: mainly something for me to drive- primarily in the winter months when my scooter & bike aren't as useful- around town, a backup vehicle for SWMBO when her Mariner isn't available for whatever reason (it's going to need some hefty work before too long, unfortunately), and something more capable of getting up and down the kind of treacherous dirt/gravel road that our future cabin will be built on. It's a nice balance of comfort and capability from what I've seen so far.

On the whole it seems to be in pretty good shape. At 158k miles it's got somewhat low miles on the clock for a sixteen-year-old suv, and it's in surprisingly good shape inside and out for its age as well. Externally the only notable blemish is a slight scrape on the front bumper, and inside the only real problem notable issue is that that the center console lid's leather pad is ripped (and repaired with black duct tape, making it still look pretty good). Mechanically, the check engine light is on- but it's a basic O2 sensor code (confirmed with my own scanner before we bought it) that should be gone once I get the new sensor in later this week; the power antenna doesn't extend or retract all the way (and sadly I found out when in the junkyard this weekend that getting to the factory wiring for it will be a BITCH, so I'm either not going to worry about it or have it replaced when I have some other wiring work done); and the driver's door is slighlty mis-aligned (I'm guessing a worn bushing) such that it takes a bit more effort than usual to close all the way. Under the car the only real rust is on the step rails along each side- though 'on' is something of a misnomer given both sides are pretty much just rust at this point. I'm going to be keeping an eye out for non-rusty ones at junkyards, but don't have a lot of confidence in finding them- I may just have to get some steel tubing and rebuild them, though for now I can easily just not step on them. They also make some less-fancy replacements (primarily for the Pathfinder, but fit the QX4 too) that would work well too.

One thing that did need to be taken care of sooner than later was the tires- the ones on it were very good in tread but VERY dry-rotted and I had no confidence they'd take any driving off pavement, so had new Yokohama Geolandar H/T's put on it on Friday, so hopefully I won't have to deal with that again for quite a while.

I have also noticed some squeaking coming from one of the pulleys, so I've got new idler/tension pulleys coming in this week as well as new belts & plugs, so I'm planning on taking advantage of the predicted nice day this Friday (that I happily have off from work) to knock out all of the things that I want/need to do on it (pulleys & belts, plugs, O2 sensor, install tow hitch & wiring, and possibly put in a new non-power antenna & hook up the steering wheel controls to the radio). If replacing the idlers doesn't eliminate the squeak I'll have to do some more diagnostic work and track it down... hopefully it's not something more internal.

Due to both being lazy and the weather not cooperating over the last week and a half, I've not gotten any really good pictures of it- will try and do that sometime soon.

Look around the front strut towers in the wheel well. Probe with a screwdriver or light hits with a hammer.  These cars had a rust recall to reinforce this area with a bolt on bracket and fiberglass over the rust holes.  Rot is widespread and surpringly easy to miss at first. Excessively rotted ones were terminal and Nissan ends up buying those back. Mine was borderline but they settled on repairing.  Failure of this area can cause the steering shaft to bind on the driver's side. 

Dealer is also supposed to apply rust inhibitor to that area after repair. Bracket is great,and totally worth the recall on it's own.  don't expect to be impressed with the fiberglass and rust inhibitor application. 

My pathfinder (R50) rotted out where the front sub-frame connects to the body at the rear mounts. It was alarmingly bad. Right rear sub-frame ear (on the front sub-frame) was connected to nothing. To be clear, the body rots away, not the sub-frame. It's not a repairable area in any shop...at least not at a financially prudent  price. It's a terminal condition unless you fix it yourself. Of course it's outside the scope of the strut tower recall, so no help from Nissan on this area.  I ended up welding a bunch of metal in place to solidify it but it was always in the back of my mind questioning how safe it was. If yours showed not rot here, I'd highly recommend fluid film or the likes be applied. 

 Pretty sure the 3.5 had timing chain issues in 02.  Not sure on the extent or fix, as I had the 3.3 in mine. 

In reply to TGMF :

I'd read up a bit about them in the few days between when I first looked at it and when SWMBO and I went back together with the intent of buying something, so I looked over the strut tower pretty closely and didn't notice anything. I'll give it a much closer going-over on Friday when it's nicer out and I'm poking around doing the belts & such. I'll check the body as well, but so far the only sign of rust I've really seen is the running boards that I need to replace or upgrade.

Hopefully the squeaking I'm hearing is just an idler- I've got a plan though to figure out exactly where it's coming from when I work to do the belts.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Ill be following along. Im either getting a Pathy/QX4 or a Isuzu Trooper here soon. 

So, with last Friday off I had the day (mostly) to work on the QX4.

Since the day started off a bit chilly and was supposed to (and did) warm up into the afternoon, I decided to tackle the things inside (or mostly inside) the cabin first- namely the cabin air filter, steering wheel controls adapter, and replacing the broken power antenna.

Cabin air filter was a breeze- and turned out to be a very wise choice as the one in the car was quite dirty. The steering wheel controls would have been MUCH easier if I hadn't berked up and gotten two wires mixed up initially- once I figured out the mistake it worked perfectly and has been really nice to have working. The antenna was a bit less fun- unfortunately the non-powered antenna I had gotten does not really fit the hole on the fender well and it took me a LOT of fiddling with it to get it to stay properly. Much as I had intended not to, I may still try and track down a replacement power antenna to put back in. But, at least I got it installed and have a halfway decent antenna now.

With the weather warming up, I tackled things outside the car, starting with the belts & pulleys. The main reason for this was to track down a squeaking noise- the HOPE was that it was one of the idler pulleys (which I had the parts to replace). Unfortunately while at least one of them did seem to be in mild distress after replacing the pulleys and belts the squeaking is still there- but at least I was able to determine a) that it's coming from the main belt and not the A/C one and b) it's not internal to the engine (the VQ35DE has a history of timing chain guide failures that I was concerned this might be). So, it's either the alternator or the power steering pump. Personally I'm betting on (and hoping) it's the alternator- mainly because replacing that will be much easier than the power steering pump.

I also wanted to put in new spark plugs- but that was more of an adventure than I'd hoped with how buried the coil-on-plugs are under the intake manifold runners. But, I eventually got it taken care of even if it meant I wasn't able to get to things like the tow hitch or the O2 sensor.

That O2 sensor is going to be a BITCH to replace. It WOULD have to be the passenger side upstream one... ANY other one is pretty easy to get to- that one I have NO idea how you do it without potentially dropping the engine. There's just no access that I can find with the manifold it's on still in the car, and I don't see how you get to the bolts to pull the manifold off to do it off the car without dropping the engine.

Set out yesterday afternoon to replace the alternator that I believe (and hope) is the source of the squeaking in the serpentine setup. Expected it to be fairly easy- I was wrong. Got about halfway through yesterday, hopefully will be able to finish it this evening. Thankfully it's supposed to be very warm (for February) today and tomorrow.

Thankfully I was able to get the alternator back in yesterday afternoon, though as expected it took solidly longer than ideal. I seriously cannot believe anyone thought that the loose nut on the back of the alternator was a good idea. Thankfully once I got everything back together and started it up (without putting the whole fan assembly/shroud back together in case it ended up not being the alt that was the problem...) it seems that I did make the right call and it was the alt and not the PS pump.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get that obnoxiously-placed O2 sensor out to replace it...

I think you'll like the QX4. I liked my ex's enough that I'm considering buying it back from her. 

In reply to Stampie :

So far I've not been disappointed in it and am glad we decided on it. It's quite comfortable while also being quite capable from what I've seen. It doesn't feel like it accelerates as easily as SWMBO's Mariner, but when you get on the gas it will definitely move.

Since the weather was surprisingly warm and clear on Tuesday, I spent the time under the back of the QX4 getting the trailer hitch (a class-3 5000lb one) installed and getting the trailer wiring harness installed. The hitch went on reasonably easily, though having a second person helping would have made it 10x easier, and the harness was really easy. Unfortunately I discovered a problem when driving it yesterday- the hitch essentially sits up against the back of the muffler, and when the muffler bounces around it bangs quite loudly into the hitch. This morning I wedged a spare rubber exhaust hanger donut between the two and for the time being it has resolved the issue, but when I get the chance I think I'm going to wire the muffler and hitch together so they hold the rubber isolator in place.

To my surprise this morning when I went to drive in to work I noticed that the CEL was off- I'm 75% sure that it was on yesterday, so it doesn't seem to be off as a result of the battery being unplugged for so long when I replaced the alternator. Will see if it stays off or not...

Finally, driving in today it occurred to me that the QX4 is probably the first vehicle I've owned where I haven't thought that the sound system needed improving. Everything I play on the stereo sounds fantastic, and since it already has a Bluetooth-capable aftermarket head unit now that I've got the steering wheel controls working it's pretty much all that I could hope for. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things the stereo isn't that important- but when everything else on a vehicle is working properly it is what I notice the most, and the QX4's is quite nice.

After about 2 weeks of it being off, I noticed the CEL back on this morning. Will pull the codes when I get home- probably the O2 sensor heater again. If so, I'll continue to not worry about it until I have time to try and swap the sensor (which is easily the hardest to get to of the O2 sensors...).

Too many words. Where are thee pictures?

In reply to smokindav :

I keep forgetting to take and post good ones... I'm usually more interested in wrenching on something than photographing it. -_-; Will have to do that the next time we have decent weather.

Just realized I'd not posted the two that I do have...