Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. So, today in the studio, we have a Second
Generation Nissan Rogue. I wanted to go over some of the top problems
that we've come to find, so let's get into it. The first problem that we're gonna talk about
comes down to poor heat inside of your passenger compartment. You go ahead and you turn on the heater, you
want it on hot, you turn on the blower motor. For some reason, it doesn't really blow up
very hot though. To solve that, we're gonna go ahead and get
right underneath the hood. Now, the symptoms that we're having for this
actually comes down to poor heat coming out of the vents when we're sitting idling.
Once we start accelerating or even jump on
the highway, the heat comes pouring out like we want it to. That's gonna lead me under the hood right
here, and the first thing that I want to do is check the coolant that's in the radiator. Obviously, you never want to open up your
radiator cap when it's hot. That feels good. We'll lift that up, set it aside.
Now you want to take a peek down in here and
make sure that you have some coolant. Commonly, the coolant could be a little bit
low. Otherwise, if the coolant isn't low and you're
having this issue, it could come down to an air pocket being trapped inside of your cooling
system which could be partly located inside of your engine, part of your cooling hoses,
or even inside the radiator or heater core located behind your dash. Now, why would the coolant be low? More than likely, it's due to the fact that
you probably have a coolant leak someplace.
It might be an external leak. So, go ahead and take a peek underneath the
vehicle and see if you have any coolant that comes dripping out. If you find a leak, obviously, you need to
fix that leak. After you fix the leak, the next issue could
potentially come in and that comes down to bleeding the cooling system. If you leave an air pocket inside the system,
there's obviously gonna be a restriction in the flow of the coolant going through. If there's a restriction, the coolant can't
make its way to the heater core, which, of course, won't make it so it heats up and you're
not gonna have any hot air blowing out the vents. So, like I said, the two most common reasons
why you might not have good heat coming out of your blower motor or out of your vents
inside the passenger compartment typically comes down to either a coolant leak, so double-check
to make sure you don't have a coolant leak, and, of course, air in the system.
Either one of those, you're gonna wanna make
sure that you go ahead and bleed out any air that's inside the system. Commonly to do that, you can just go ahead
and jack up the front of the car a little bit so the car's sitting at an angle. That's gonna help make it so the air bubbles
will make their way all the way up to the top, and then, of course, they'll make their
way out. Coolant will fill up that gap and then you
shouldn't have any issue. Other possible causes for this issue could
potentially be a thermostat issue. If for some reason the thermostat isn't functioning
properly, it's gonna restrict the amount of coolant flow going through the system, so,
of course, there isn't gonna be hot coolant making its way to the heater core. Other than that, speaking of the heater core,
if the heater core is blocked up with anything, that's gonna cause an issue as well, the coolant
won't be able to flow through it. Once again, that means that you're not gonna
have any heat coming out of those vents.
Other than that, if the coolant inside the
system isn't diluted properly, or maybe it's a little bit too strong, it's gonna cause
a restriction in the flow as well. That's a little less likely, but it is potentially
a cause. Now for our second problem, we're gonna talk
about transmission issues. Specifically, on this one, it has a CVT transmission,
which essentially means it can seamlessly change through a continuous range of gear
ratios. Some of the symptoms that you might happen
to find if you're having an issue with your transmission might be something as basic as
shaking or shuttering under acceleration, or even some kind of jonesing.
Essentially, you go ahead and you step on
the gas, it doesn't seem like it wants to go, then it does, then it does, then it doesn't. Off and on, back and forth, and it just doesn't
really feel like it's very fluent and it doesn't feel comfortable at all. So, let's talk about some quick fixes for
this. The first thing that I would wanna do is try
to check and/or replace the transmission fluid. Now, when you do this, you wanna make sure
that you're using the proper fluid.
If you go ahead and use any other type of
fluid besides what's recommended by Nissan for this particular CVT transmission, you
could potentially cause even more damage than what's already happening now. The proper CVT fluid that you're gonna wanna
use for this would be the Nissan-specific fluid. It's NS-3. So, you're gonna wanna get yourself a whole
bunch of that fluid and flush out the system. Make sure that you don't have any of the existing
fluid that was in there in there anymore and it's all brand new fluid. After that, go ahead and take it for a road
test.
Hopefully, that the shuttering and everything
else is gone now. If it isn't, for some reason, typically it's
an internal transmission issue. Inside the transmission, there's gonna be
a valve body that's inside there and it has a whole bunch of little valves that are gonna
open and close, which, of course, is gonna help with the range selection of the transmission. Now the valve body itself can potentially
go bad internally. To fix this, you're gonna have to get inside
the transmission. It isn't necessarily something that I would
wanna do in a driveway I would, of course, wanna have a qualified service technician
take care of it for me. Now, a third problem that we're gonna talk
about comes down to strut caps.
The strut caps are gonna be located out front
of your vehicle right where your strut mounts to the body. Okay. So, I have a strut right here so I can show
you. Know it's not the one from inside this actual
vehicle because I'm not just gonna go ahead and tear it out of there just to be able to
show you. But essentially, it's gonna have a shaft that
comes down here. It's gonna have the spring in between the
coil spring. And then, of course, it's gonna have the strut
that comes all the way up through, and it needs to lead to the strut mount which is
located up along the top.
The mount itself is supposed to be in between
the spring and the body of the vehicle. So, essentially, you can still turn the wheel
and it's not necessarily gonna bind up or restrict you in any way. Now, the strut that I showed you didn't have
a bearing cap on the top that made it so it could be able to spin. It's for a completely different application,
but I do have a cap here that I can show you. So essentially, just look along the bottom
here. Imagine that the spring is sitting right there
and, of course, the shaft of the strut is coming up through the center right here. This part right here is gonna be mounted to
the body of the vehicle. It's gonna come right up through into the
engine compartment. Now, when I go ahead and turn my wheel, this
down right here should be able to spin. So, what can happen with this though is as
you're spinning, if the bearings that are located on the inside area right here are
binding up or rotted or damaged in any way, it's gonna cause an issue where you hear some
creaking, some grinding, and even some clunking, especially under sharp turns.
So, what does this mean to you? Essentially, that means that the bearings
up along the top right here are damaged. How can that happen? While driving over a lot of bumps, of course,
you're putting a lot of strain on everything that's involved. Other than that, if you had somebody try to
do any service to it and they went ahead and tightened up the nut that's in the center
right there, that's gonna crush this bearing right down.
And then, of course, it's gonna put a lot
of excess pressure on those bearings and, of course, wipe them out prematurely. Now let's quickly talk about fixes for this. For me personally, of course, I'm gonna have
to replace the strut cap on it. Typically, when I do these, I'm gonna do them
as a pair. Also, something to think about though is to
get this off of there, you're gonna have to take apart your entire front strut to be able
to do this.
When you do that, it can be very dangerous
overall because the coil spring that goes around it is gonna be under a tremendous amount
of pressure, and if you do it wrong, it could be very dangerous. So, my opinion, if you're doing this in the
driveway and you don't have a whole bunch of the proper tools such as a big old strut
compressor or anything like that, it only really makes sense to go ahead and get myself
a whole complete assembly, brand new strut. And when I do them, I do them as a pair. When I'm done, I get myself a four-wheel alignment. Now for our fourth problem, we're gonna talk
about fuel level sensor issues. Now your fuel level sensor is generally gonna
be located on your fuel sending unit, which is gonna be located inside of your fuel tank
underneath your car. So, let's say you're driving down the road,
you think you have plenty of gas, but for some reason, the car runs out of fuel.
Well, obviously, that would tell you that
there's gotta be an issue with the range selector on the actual fuel pump assembly itself. If it's not functioning properly, the car
up at the front right there might think that you have plenty of gas where really you don't. Now real quick, what can happen to this? I'm gonna show you on this particular sending
unit. It's not necessarily the one for this particular
application, once again, because I'm not gonna go ahead and tear out the gas tank to be able
to show you the one in particular. But if you were to look real close at it where
the range selector is, you can tell that it has a whole bunch of little indicators on
there, but what can happen over time is the range selector tends to get worn out.
As you can tell on this one right here, you
can see that all the areas where it's supposed to make its little range selection, well,
they're just kinda wiped out a little bit and that's gonna happen over time. Now for a fix for this, you're gonna have
to get inside the fuel tank, go ahead and remove the fuel sending unit and, of course,
you're gonna have to inspect it. Make sure that there isn't any debris in there.
If it looks like it has any type of like a
slimy coating or anything like that on there, of course, you can try to clean it and retry
it. Overall, what it comes down to is you're gonna
have to replace the unit. Now for our fifth problem, we're gonna talk
about the canister purge control valve. Symptoms for this that you might happen to
find would be a check engine light that comes on in your dash. You go ahead and grab your little scan tool,
you pull the code and it comes up PO444. Essentially, that's gonna tell you that you're
having an issue with your emission system and the issue is gonna be located in the rear
of your vehicle. Now to start diagnosing this issue, obviously,
you're gonna wanna be able to find where the valve is actually located. If you get underneath the passenger side rear
bumper of your car, you're gonna be able to find a big old black canister underneath there,
and on it it's gonna have a couple of different valves.
You're gonna wanna make sure that you're picking
out the right valve though. Take a look at all the wiring that goes to
it. If you find wiring that looks like it's been
chewed through or rubbed through, obviously, that's probably the issue. That is actually a common issue. Other than that, you could actually have an
issue with the valve itself. If it goes bad internally and it seems like
it's shorting out, it could potentially put a little burn in that wire. You go ahead and you touch on those wires,
you find like a little swollen area, or even it seems like the outer sheathing's worn off,
commonly it's because it's overheated. And if that's the issue, it's actually the
valve that's the issue. So, what you'd want to do is, of course, look
at the wiring, make sure it looks like it's good. If it is, go ahead and find that valve itself
and give it a couple loving bonks just to see if it actually breaks free.
Sometimes the little valve inside sticks. Other than that, if it still doesn't seem
like it wants to work, you're gonna have to go ahead and replace the valve itself. Now, if you did happen to find that there
was an issue with the wiring itself, commonly, you just want to go ahead and replace the
wiring harness that leads to it. Maybe you're a little bit more handy or maybe
you just don't really wanna spend that kind of money.
If the wiring itself just has like a little
rubbed-through area or looks like it's broken, just go ahead and cut off that rubbed-through
area or the broken area, and then just put in a little splicer there and go ahead and
connect it back together. Overall, this should work okay for you, but
typically, the best case scenario for this would be to just go ahead and replace the
wiring and the actual valve itself. Okay, friends, so that's pretty much what
I've got for you for some of the top common problems on a Second Generation Nissan Rogue.
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