Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

I have personally had 4 seperate ecu failures in my own cars.

Granted, these were all aftermarket ecu's fitted to cars that did not have ecu's when manufactured. I firmly believe factory-fitted ecu's are as reliable as carburettors and points.

But the same does not hold true for the sensors that the ecu's need to draw their info from. I have had numerous issues with these as well, often factory-fitted ones.

Yes, if you know your way around a scanning tool, you may be able to isolate which sensor it is, but firstly i don't and secondly where are you going to find one?

Just my

I am bying a launch scantool in cape town next week. SAC boksburg uses the same one and they reffered me to these guys. Would you like for me to pick up one for you Peter. It costs less then a suspension or a set of tyres. Even less than n lexus V8? About the same price as a Ironman bullbar.

The expresion one the persons face that you will be helping in the middel of nowhere will be priceless thow ...........

Alex Roux wrote:

Michael wrote: I will fit an EGT monitor to any diesel I own, this is one of the best tools to measure whats going on. Like Tinus sais: om te meet is om te weet
I think Josh has the perfect setup for a 3.0crd and I will drive with his Patrol anywhere without worries

So why don't manufaturers fit the EGTs? Do they not agree with you that it is necessary?

Which would you rather take on a long overland trip, the 3.0CRD or the 4.2NA (neither with any mods, no EGT either)?
Would you sway towards the 30.0CRD only because it is more pleasent to drive in the long haul, or becaue you think it is more reliable?

I do not want this to divert into the Diesel vs Petrol debate, but if you drive Josh's car, you will still need to take extra precautions to check the quality of the diesel that you get at the pump (not the ppm, but the potential water content.
Also, in my reading I have discovered that Petrol is generally still always available where diesel is available (albeit at lower octane).
However it did happen at least once to the Voetspore team in Ethiopea where they stopped at a fuel station that only had Petrol. So their Amaroks had to march on.

Alex they don't even fit a water level sensor which is the main cause of more engine failures than any other in my opinion. There is no way of telling if your engine has run out of water or not until its too late. So getting them to fit a R2,000+ item as standard vs a R50 water sensor....I dont think it makes sense for them. I have fixed a 3.0 that suffered from over heating and that same car has been repaired before because of the same reason.

There are many manufacturers that monitor the EGT on the engine (Like VW) and that engine will never burn a hole in the piston due to over fueling because the ECU just reduces the fuel to keep the EGT's within spec.

Now there is obviously exceptions to this like a injector that fails (where the ECU can reduce the fuel as much as it wants and it will still over fuel), of when software has been done and doesn't allow the ECU to cut fuel.

I would hate driving a N/A 4.2 because of the lack of power and no way of monitoring anything. Its no secret that the 4.2D has problems keeping cool hence why I monitor everything. A 4.2D N/A is just not for me (and this is just my personal preference), its just too under powered and I will hate driving it when overlanding.
So to answer your question, I would hands down prefer a 3.0CRD over a standard 4.2D any day of the week.

JoshJ wrote:Even less than n lexus V8?

Yes, it should be, because a Lexus is much cheaper than a set of tyres.
In fact I can replace my engine for less than what Nissan charges for a new alternator. Much less actually.
But the conversion is not cheap. Or rather, if it is, you will pay later.