2012 Nissan Xterra

[AKROVER]

With most things I do, it is two steps forward and one back. The first time out with the temperature gauge gave me a reading well above outside temperatures. I figured I was simply measuring the temperature of the emergency brake cable as I had strapped the sensor to it so I fabricated a block of closed cell foam to hold the sensor away from any part of the truck. I then strapped the foam block to a cross member underneath. Unfortunately that didn’t work any better as the heat rolling back through the driveshaft tunnel and radiating from the exhaust system still gave me an elevated temperature. Last week with temperatures briefly hitting 40, I headed out into the damp garage to extend the really short wire on the sensor and move the sensor outside the frame rails. I now seem to read a reasonable temperature, well except for the fact that actual temperatures haven’t been particularly reasonable lately.

[AKROVER]

Three times cooler than Paul

[Basement Paul]

Well done.

-BP

[AKROVER]

A new accessory for the Nissan:

Today we returned to South Dakota residency and the Nissan got its third SD plate in its lifetime. It is at 47K miles which means I have about 33K on the tires. The right front is wearing horribly with high and low spots. The left front looks good so it might have a future as my spare. The rears I thought were looking good, but by the time I got to SD, I decided they were looking pretty thin, even but thin. New tires are in the future (prior to Ecuador), but for now I will run these until they cry uncle. The big news is that the most important thing to do for trailer stability turns out to be improving the sidewall stiffness on the trailer tire. I cruised out here on my new load range D trailer tires, an upgrade from the C's. They handled great even with some serious gusty cross winds. Gas mileage seemed good, too, but expectations are low when I set the cruise at 70 - I smile at double digits. We are heading to our property tomorrow for about a week of living a disconnected lifestyle on 2700 acres - no phone, no internet, no electricity (well, solar and a portable generator), and only as much water as our trailer can carry. Buffalo is permanently in the rear view and vacation starts tomorrow.

[AKROVER]

With just over 52,000 miles on the truck, I spent a small fortune yesterday. I finally bought some new tires. The old ones weren’t quite done as we really haven’t been driving much since arriving in D.C. I went with Yokohamas this time as that was the cheaper name brand and they seem to have decent reviews. They get a little bit of bad press for snow performance, but since we are headed for the equator, I wasn’t going to prioritize snow. I stuck with the LT load range E tires for hopefully some added durability on poor quality roads. I switched up the look by having the white lettering outward again. The truck is now old enough that it deserves to look like a classic. It was nice to drive home without that slight vibration from the one poorly worn front tire. The alignment might have helped the feel a little, too, but hard to tell in a one mile drive in the city if things are really noticeably better. They also did rotors and pads all the way around. The old rotors still measured adequate, but they were really rusty and only barely adequate so this avoids trying to get brakes done in a foreign country. They also changed the oil and the manual trans fluid which were both quite overdue. They also fixed the rattling heat shield. I half expected them to tell me I needed an exhaust system, but apparently they were happy with all the money they were getting from me. I think the only other thing I need to worry about prior to shipping the vehicle is the windshield. It has a couple of old chips, one pretty big one that I tried a superglue trick on per the advice of a windshield shop. I don’t know if it worked, but the cracks never did run. I’ll have to see if insurance will cover a windshield replacement as I suspect it really doesn’t need to be done for normal practical considerations but some countries will resist importing vehicles with visible defects.

[AKROVER]

Today I replaced the windshield. My insurance would have paid to have it repaired, but I suspect a reasonable percentage of those repairs fail and then the insurance companies and glass companies just work together to replace at that point in time. That wouldn't work for me in Ecuador and the replacement was only $250. Both chips were right in front of the passenger so it is nice to have clean glass again.

[AKROVER]

The Nissan has landed on its fourth continent (it spent two years in Europe while I was in Australia so this is only the third continent that I have driven it on. This is my carport in Ecuador.



The car arrived dirtier than I shipped it (which was pretty dirty) and clearly had been transported through swarms of lovebugs on its way to being loaded on a ship in Miami. My gardener cleaned it up really well. Some idiot scraped the rear quarter somewhere along the way.



The paint was removed for about six inches plus a small spot up higher. I already found my touchup paint and brushed some on to protect the metal. It really isn’t a big deal since the car is now nine years old (although only 54K miles). It was shipped in a container and they didn’t open the container until I got to the port so here is a picture of it still in the container.



Someone sucked out the eighth of a tank I left in it so my first driving experience was several miles through sketchy neighborhoods to a gas station with the needle far below E. That was pretty nerve wracking. So far I have put on almost a hundred miles. The driving around here is quite aggressive and there are no left turns off any of the main roads so every short trip is made quite a bit longer finding the next u-turn lane. Stop signs are apparently completely optional, but really only an option if you want to risk getting rear-ended. Most of them are really yield situations so it isn’t all that frightening.

[AKROVER]

In three days, this truck will be ten years old. Tomorrow, it begins its journey back to the states. I washed and waxed it this weekend. It looks pretty good for its age. There are lots of imperfections and even a little bit of rust starting in places, particularly the rear bumper. It looks like we only put on about 2500 miles in our time in Ecuador. It hasn't had an oil change since the last time it was in the states, but it got synthetic at that time and there are no seasons to speak of here. The oil on the dipstick looks pretty new still. I can't believe the life this vehicle has had in only 57K miles. On to the next chapter.

[AKROVER]

The Nissan arrived in South Dakota on Sunday without any obvious shipping damage, roughly the same amount of gas as I shipped it with, and no more than 1 additional mile on the odometer. It did have a check engine light, a mass air flow code. I reset it and will see if it reappears. That forced me to finally sync my newer phone with the OBD device so I can now use the Torque app on that phone. I had been using my older phone in Ecuador, but it ran out of memory so I had to uninstall the app. It is a relief to have the Nissan here already. We shipped it early to give us the best chance of receiving it while we are here. It was briefly held up in Miami to allow the hurricane to pass and it took a few days longer than expected to get it across the country, but it arrived with a couple weeks to spare.

[Basement Paul]

On top of the 56k miles it's traveled under it's own power, roughly how many miles has it spent in containers, on trains, and in trucks?

-BP

[AKROVER]

I estimate that the Nissan has been transported 4K by land, 14K by sea, and 8K by air for a total of 26K miles. The carbon footprint of this vehicle has been roughly 37 tons (CO2) due to driving and 14 tons due to transport of which about 12 tons are due to the air transport alone in and out of Congo. While I am not an expert in shipping cost, I estimate that the government has paid about $25K to ship my vehicle around the world.

I drove the Nissan to my property this morning and in the 50-mile round trip, I did not get another check engine light. It is running great, but it isn't as much fun to drive as the VW.

[Basement Paul]

Wow, didn't realize that it has been on a plane too. That's pretty amazing! It will be fun again when there's a foot of snow on the roads.

-BP

[MostMint]

How about before you bought it? Was it manufactured in USA?

[AKROVER]

It was assembled in Smyrna Tennessee and purchased in Chantilly Virginia so add another 650 trucking miles. Xterra was pretty much only a US market model therefore assembled here. Most of the rest of the world had lower safety and emission standards so for offroad, they got the Patrol, an old-school Toyota Landcruiser (70 series) competitor.

[AKROVER]

The Nissan is now in storage for the next couple of months. I burned through almost a full tank of gas since its arrival back in the States. I filled it with expensive zero ethanol fuel prior to parking it in my storage unit in Rapid City. I also disconnected the battery. The truck has been running very well but my tires are not a good choice for some of the grooved roads around here. They may have a little too much tread yet as they only have a few thousand miles on them. Of course it isn’t just the tires that make the VW the more fun vehicle to drive.