ASD Dad

We drive big heavy boxes but I do wish it was a little better for mileage. I used to get 13-14 easily in mixed driving. Added AT tires and roof rack and now get 12-ish mixed. Even on the highway I only get 12 maybe 13 but that is with cruise set at 70 mph. I can live with the MPG but the tank is so small my range is around 300 miles on good tanks which makes for way too many gas fill ups. People have asked if the Bully Dog, air intakes or the free airbox mod does anything for MPG. Nope. There is no magic bullet. What the BD and other things DO help with are drive-ability and a bit more power. Whenever I need to uninstall the BD for service work it shocks me how my NV drives stock and I cant wait to get the tune back.

Do you have the factory tow package? If yes it could not be easier. There is a factory pigtail wire harness most likely in your glove box that is wrapped up in tape. That harness is labelled and you wire it to your controller of choice (I have been running a Tekonsha P3 for years and like it). The plug end simply connects to the factory wire harness that will be taped up and out of the way down near the parking brake pedal. Just cut the tape to free the coiled up harness and plug together. That is it. You're done! Read your controllers instructions for best placement. Some are more sensitive to angles than others. I have mine mounted below the factory radio in that empty slot so it's easy to reach if needed. Most just stick down on the lower dash near one of their knees / shins.

welcome to the site! Be sure to post photos of your build so we can follow along.

They do not make anything for the NVP so that is why I was curious. I would like to see the install if somebody has done it for a Passenger. Only thing you need to make sure of is that the seats latch all the way down and sit flat. Maybe the Vanrug is too thick to allow that to happen. Description said it is foam backed.

I wonder why they say it wont fit other than the holes not being cut into them for the seats. I wouldnt mind something beefier in my NVP for the kids and dogs. rad- you may want to change your link - you forgot the "s" at the end of eurocamper! It's www.eurocampers.com

That is truly awesome. Would love to see a drivers view with all those lights on at night! Great work! I'm jealous you fit in your garage. I am building a house right now and our new garage WILL fit the NV! I havent parked inside in many years and told my wife I am making a garage big enough to fit. I've got a 16' wide by 9' door installed on my side so I am definitely going to fit this time around. I've only got 7-8" of clearance with my kayak racks mounted to my roof rack (when folded of course) but I do fit.

If you find out let us know. I have had a clunk for over 20,000 miles at low speed when letting off the gas and then getting back on the throttle. Happens around 30-35 mph somewhat regularly. Feels like a bad/loose u-joint type clunk. Dealer cant replicate it of course and I didnt have time to take a tech for a drive the last time I was in. Also, my dealer wants me to change my transmission fluid every 30K miles. I asked them to show me where it states that in the manual (it doesnt). It DOES if you have a CVT transmission, but we of course do not.

Nice! Looks like your dog approves as well! Does that wind defector help with your rack? Mine is still noisy at certain speeds even with the rope wrap. It is 99% better than without the rope wrap but still has some hum to it now and then.

Nice work! Thanks for posting the build thread.

Fantastic tire. Have over 15k miles on mine and still quiet with great traction. Keep in mind, when mine were new I Hated them for 500-ish miles. They felt really greasy and squirmy. Once they finally broke in I'm very happy and would buy another set any day.

Welcome to the site! The NV should serve you well. Few things - If you plan on driving in NE Winters get some snow tires or AT tires, the stock Firestones are terrible in wet grass let alone snow. Mats - I have generic rubber mats up front and used rubber backed carpet runner for the rear rows. It's a somewhat common mod on here and cheap. Would be nice to have fully custom mats but they are not out there other than Nissan. I think they do offer rear mats, I have seen them in the past. No salt or rust here so never had to deal with undercoating. I do hose off the underside after we go camping at the beach. Others will chime in for that one that live up north. You do want to check the mud flaps, they collect crud and water inside. A simple drain hole fixes the water. Side steps - there are only a few out there and none are cheap. Some are suspect quality as well. Some have bought other models and fabbed up mounts for them. We could use them for my in-laws who ride with us all the time and she needs a little step stool to help get in and out but we have not bought steps yet. Aluminess rack is probably the best there is. Last I checked it will run about $2500-ish shipped for the basic rack and ladder. That quickly goes up depending on options. I could not justify the price so bought a galvanized steel contractor rack and modified it for my needs. It supports up to 750 lbs and was $450. Definitely not as fancy or nicely built as the Aluminess! Since you are in RI you have to have a few boat shops around. There is a guy in FL that had a boat ladder builder make a rack identical to the Aluminess for a lot less money, ladder and all. If you look through the photo gallery his van is called The Beast. Any decent fab shop should be able to build one if you want to go that route. Quality has been excellent overall. I have had some issues here and there but all were handled under warranty. None has been mechanical issues. I have over 40,000 miles with two years of driving and a lot of that is camping trips towing. No issues at all towing. Fit and finish is another story. You can tell that even the top of the line models are still based off a commercial vehicle. Lots of hard plastics everywhere. No visor mirrors (common complaint). Some large inside gaps here and there. Etc... It is still a very nice vehicle and making it a little nicer inside would require a lot more work on Nissan's part and drive up costs to us since it is not just a simple leather seat swap then. It definitely jumped out at me when first driving it but I quickly got used to it. There really is nothing else out there like the NV that can haul a lot of people and/or cargo as well as be able to tow a decent amount.

Welcome! We've had ours for 2 years now and I have 40,000 miles on it. Lots of trips camping towing the trailer in my sig line below. Tows really well overall. Could always use more power but it is adequate! MPG is a bummer, I average the same with the old tech, a Bully Dog tuner and a simple airbox mod with better filter. I was actually getting 13-14 regularly until I added the all terrain tires and roof rack. Both dropped me 1 mpg on average. There are others on here with stock vans getting 14-15 average. I still believe with this size van it is all in your right foot for mpg! I agree with all the cons you pointed out, I hated the center console plastic for months but I am just used to it now. You can tell that even the SL was originally a commercial van other than some tech and leather not much changed!

Wow, looks to have held up very well for a crash at that speed. He said all air bags deployed so that certainly helped. The shape also helps it not keep rolling. They mention looking forward to another one so it sounds like they'll be replacing it with a newer NV. They mentioned it was 6 years old! Looks in great shape for that age. When I got hit by the girl that wasnt paying attention she was traveling near full speed (about 35 mph) and the damage done to my van was minimal compared to her Honda Civic. We drive big tanks! I definitely feel safe in it.

Welcome to the site! Please post up real world MPG numbers once you get some miles on the 2017. We only have a couple 2017's with the new motor/transmission on here and I'd like to see where the numbers end up. I had asked before but never heard from the other new 2017. If you dont mind, what was the sticker vs. what you paid for the SL?

You are definitely not alone! I dont like the Nav either. I do use it but always have a backup with Google Maps. The traffic alert with auto-rerouting comes in handy on long trips but Google will do the same thing. The Sirius Traffic does not take into account side roads for traffic, just highways so that is bad. It tried to re-route us once during rush hour and we got stuck on surface streets for nearly as long as the accident we were trying to avoid on the highway. Other issue is we have a lot of new road construction going on here and Google has trouble keeping up with new ramps and roads let alone an old nav card from Nissan.

Congrats and welcome! If you dont mind - what was the sticker vs. price paid? I have the exact color and model as you, just a 2015. Looking forward to hearing how the new motor/trans combo is working in real life. I also cant wait to hear your opinions of towing your big Airstream through the CO mountains with that vehicle. I assume you used to tow it with the diesel Excursion.

If you want simple and dead reliable I recommend the Timbrens, just make sure they dont touch when unloaded. They really cant fail even after years of use and they are inexpensive. Air bags are great and super adjustable if you want to tinker but many just set and forget.

Welcome to the forum!

I agree - dealerships should be checking but dont. My fronts were aired up to 90 psi at delivery! Rears were too. My dealership sells quite a few Cargo and a decent amount of passenger NV's. I dont think the porters that prep these for delivery know about the PSI requirements of the tires honestly. Most of them are kids earning minimum wage just to wash them and make them look nice for delivery. BUT - the salesperson who usually does the delivery and goes over things Should know the requirements and it would be easy enough for them to check. I dont think they care... Nvdad - your dealer messed up a few times. They should have also checked when doing the alignment. You cant properly align a vehicle unless the pressure is correct in the tires.

I use it every time towing our camper. I do not use it towing my landscape trailer. Even loaded up with 3+ yards of mulch it still tows easily and I am normally not towing far or through hills with that trailer. The tow mode holds gears longer, will downshift when going downhill and you press the brakes (most of the time), etc. It still goes into OD but not as quickly. I tend to use manual mode on the rolling highways around here when towing heavy, I can get in the right lower gear early and shift up on the way back down. On long grades going down I can also easily downshift for some engine braking help. Doesnt hurt to use it, try it out the next time you pull something and see if you like the way the ECU is controlling things. When pulling some weight dont worry about letting the engine spin up. I am regularly in 3rd gear on the highway on decent hills. It gets the motor in the middle of the torque curve and you'll find you need less throttle vs. lugging the engine. I was really shocked when I was towing with my Tundra how often the ECU wanted a low gear but these gas motors need that torque peak to be more efficient. Had over 80,000 miles with a huge chunk of that towing with the Tundra and I am nearing 40,000 miles on my NV with 1000's of miles towing already. Been up through the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains and then down to FL many times pulling our camper. Spinning at 3500+ RPM in 100* heat during the summer in the mountains and the engine and transmission are still running nice and cool. We have big old coolers sitting front and center behind our grills!

Do you have a WD hitch on there? Cant tell from the photo. Nissan recommends a WD hitch for any trailer over 5000# on all NV full size vans. Put a WD hitch on, most of the squat goes away if it is adjusted correctly. The NV 3500 is definitely not in the same class as your F350. It may be a "1 ton" van but it is not in the same league as a 1 ton HD truck.

Welcome to the forum! What made you decide on the 2016 vs the new tech 2017?

On my recent trip to FL I saw several NVP's including another one towing a small camper. Normally I see 1 or 2 on that trip but there are definitely more out there now. I still see way more Cargo's of course. What is weird is I used to see a lot of Transits. This trip I think I saw 2 so it was the exact opposite vs. the NVP for prior trips. Not sure where they all went so quickly! Our neighbor has a high top/mid top? passenger Transit 350 that is a conversion van. I have never talked to them (they're a street over) but see them all the time. It looks nice when I have seen it up close. The Transit I thought about renting for fun when my van was in the body shop looked horrible! Very cheap looking inside. Forgot - one thing I have noticed is more Titans. I did not see any until recently other than 2 with dealer tags. In the past couple weeks I have seen several. All but two were Cummins.

Image on the Nissan is terrible! It has to be something with the NV specific parts. I have had new Nissan loaners when my van was in for warranty work and they had excellent rear cameras. One was a Rogue the other an Altima, both 2016 models. The resolution or something is just really bad on the NV and on a vehicle where you cant see anything of value out the rear windows it would be nice to see a better image! BTW the 8100NEX is on sale for a couple more days at Newegg. Hundreds cheaper than elsewhere. Just noticed when I looked up the model after reading this recent post. I would be tempted to replace if the image is better with the factory camera on the Pioneer screen. Would make hooking up our trailers much easier (camper and landscape trailer).

I think one big reason is the lack of full size van options out there. You have the old Express and E series vans that have not been touched in years technology wise and do not drive well compared to a modern vehicle. The new Sprinters and Transits are getting more popular but they do not have the ability to tow much weight. SUV's are going the same route. Excursion is long gone. 3/4 T GM SUV's are no longer for sale brand new unless you are a government agency. The last versions of the 3/4T 'burb and Yukon also had very soft suspension for ride comfort vs. towing ability so they needed upgrades brand new if you wanted to actually use it as intended. That leaves very few large SUV's left. Some have decent ratings but dont seat as many or are very tight if you use all rows for seats (Sequoia comes to mind). Expedition XL is among the last around to still tow decent and seat more than 5 OK. Even the newest Armada that has the new Nissan V8 and transmission in it is smaller than before due to it being based off the global Patrol model. If you want to carry a lot of people/pets/and gear that would be stowed inside AND you want to be able to tow anything with decent weight there is really only one option - the Nissan NV. We looked months and researched a ton and there just isnt anything else like our van out there right now. If you just need to carry passengers then you can argue the Sprinter / Transit offer viable options vs the NV. Some are even larger than the NV if you really have a lot to carry. Nice bonus is we have the best warranty period.