ASD Dad

I traded my 2010 Tundra for the NVP! I LOVED that truck and was quite sad to let it go but we ran out of room on camping trips. I needed to haul us, the dogs and our camper and the NVP is the only thing out there that does it well that is brand new. Nothing else has this high of a tow rating and can carry a lot of people and stuff. Were you on Tundra Talk? I was on there for most of my 5 years of Tundra ownership.

Welcome! We own the NVP and a Sienna! NVP gets more use with a lot of trips, mine is one year old this month and I have 21,000 miles on it.

First off - Welcome to the forum! Sweet smell plus white smoke = coolant issues. Antifreeze smells quite sweet and if burned in the engine gives off white smoke. Add all that up and it "normally" equals a leaking head gasket or other bad thing, but normally head gasket. What you can check at home easily: Check your coolant. If it foamy, foul smelling, not clear, dirty looking, low - all that is bad. Pull your oil dipstick - is the level high? Coolant/water could be leaking in. Is it light brown/milky/foamy? Again - all bad. Pull off the oil cap - is it light brown, smelly, foamy, etc - All bad. That white smoke after sitting is it accumulating in the engine oil and getting into the combustion area and burning off. It goes away after driving and warming up due to it burning off faster than it is building up. Do you notice any drips under the van or around the head gasket? Any weeping? Stains on the engine block? Get a strong flashlight and check the whole gasket area, water pump area, etc. Others will probably chime in but check those easy things and report back if you can. If it is the head gasket it needs fixed ASAP and it wont be cheap. 32,000 miles is really low for a 2013 (I have 21,000 on my 1 yr old 2015!). I am guessing it has sat a lot and sitting isnt all that good for engines if they sit a long long time. There are some ASE Master mechanics on this site along with some Nissan techs so I hope they see and reply. I am neither but have been wrench turning on vehicles a long time for myself and friends!

Thanks guys. I had a feeling it was only for the rack and not the actual roof. I am used to walking on the roof of our camper and even then I try and only walk where I can see the cross beams even though the whole roof can support me easily. The roof rack I was looking at was a simple cross bar rack (Vantech H3). I would need to mount 2 J Hook carriers, one flat carrier and also be able to put something down across the bars to walk. I think that idea is now out! I also looked at more of a basket style rack like the Topper contractors rack. That would be much easier to rig something to walk on but wife hates that galvanized steel look up there. They make kayak load assist devices, one of which hooks right to the J Hook so it slides right in (Malone is one option). I may just end up going that route to keep it simple. The middle kayak is the lightest so hopefully wont be too difficult to get into the center cradle.

OK, so the roof holds 500# (some sites say 750#) for the low roof model. Can you actually walk up there or is that weight rating only if you use a rack mounted to the roof hard mounts? I have 3 kayaks I need to get up there and I think the easiest way is to use a boat roller out back and just go stand on the roof and pull them up there! Just get the nose on to the roller and yank it on up and slide it into the J Hooks. If I can walk up there I was going to put down some protective film or even grip tape to protect the paint.

Search really is your friend!! http://nissannvforum.com/topic/165-cabin-air-filter-where/?hl=%2Bcabin+%2Bfilter

It is behind the glove box and I believe it is the same filter as the mighty Nissan GTR!! Now that is funny... There was a write up on the site somewhere on getting it out. There were two methods but one was much easier.

It's a great and free mod that I would recommend immediately to any owner of the 5.6 motor. I am still happy with it nearly 18,000 miles later.

The new F150's are towing kings for a 1/2 Ton truck. The Aluminum body weight savings gave them that much more payload to use and add for towing. I dont really consider the new Titan XD Cummins a true half ton truck. It's more like a 5/8 ton! Chris is right about the mileage though. If it is empty and you can stay out of the turbos you'll see decent mileage. The second you need to spool them up a lot like towing or just getting your foot into it a lot the mileage will drop just like running their 5.0 V8 or any other V8 out there. Just cant fool plain old physics!

The new F150's are nice. I just cant believe where truck pricing is going. They're luxury cars now vs. something to haul dirt in!

You cant get anywhere near that tow rating on a passenger Transit. We looked long and hard at them prior to the NV due to dealer network and spoke to several dealerships about it. The rating just isnt there. The top of the line model with the biggest motor (that V6 turbo) was still under 5000# if you added the numbers up with passengers and cargo. With the CARGO Transit you can get up there but you arent going to be carrying anybody but a passenger. I dont know why Ford shot themselves with that rating and capacity. They can build their HD F150 to tow 10,000 lbs plus then put that motor in a week chassis for the van. ============== To the OP = Psyched - if you could get by with just 8 passengers I would look at the new Nissan Armada when it comes out. It's based off the Nissan Patrol which is Nissans answer to the Toyota Landcruiser for the world. Truck chassis, big motor (the new 5.6 with way more power than the current model), better transmission and factory 4x4.

I have seen two new NVP's lately. One silver like mine and one the brown color. When I took mine in for service I was chatting with the commercial manager and he told me he had the best month ever for him or the dealership last month. Local plumbing company ordered 25 NV commercials and another company ordered 5 high roofs. That was on top of his regular commercial sales where he said things were quite brisk. We still love ours. Couple things I would change here or there but overall it's been great for the family needs.

Ours has been towing great. I have a 7600 pound Toy Hauler and it pulls well. Not quite as well as my old Tundra but well enough. The ride is actually better with the NV vs. my truck due to the stiffer suspension and E tires. We just got back from a 1000 mile trip down to FL and back with the camper and all was well. I averaged around 8mpg in the rolling hills here and it went up to 9.5 once I hit the flat roads of GA and FL.

In the NV Drift video they state they added a LSD to the van (along with a hydraulic handbrake). Not sure if Nissan modded it for the shoot or the production company modded it. Either way it worked quite well from the footage!

Just wanted to update this... I AM STILL WAITING ON MY RADIO!! Seriously. They ordered it when I called in on Feb 25th. I just got back from a week long camping trip (over 1000 miles with no issues) and called this morning to see what was going on. No update or ETA on getting it in. Thankfully the radio has worked and only freaked out once with the light show again. I have not found a replacement yet, figured if they want to keep replacing it for free I'll let them.

Pricing came out - http://blog.caranddriver.com/2017-nissan-titan-xd-gas-v-8-priced-from-36485/ Kind of puts a big dagger into the Nissan Commercial idiocy of charging an extra $10 GRAND to drop this motor and transmission in the NV series. The new Titan is totally new from the ground up with the much better motor and transmission and barely more money than the outgoing Titan that was ancient. If they want to charge $500-$1000 for the new motor and transmission I would jump in an instant.

That is cool info. I could be interested in doing this as I have gotten stuck with my 2WD NVP camping once already and almost another time. Wet southern clay has zero traction! Those giant tow hooks came in handy that day. At bare min I am replacing my highway Firestone stock tires with something that has more grip in dirt and gravel. EDIT: Did you get a price? From a quick search it looks like the locker alone is around $1000 plus all the seals, shims, etc and labor. Saw some old threads on Titan talk that it is hard to even get the GKN locker other than through a dealer which would drive the price up even more.

I agree with andy above. They most likely are classifying it as a 1 Ton commercial vehicle. Talk to an agent and see if you can straighten it out or just move on. There are so many insurance companies out there! We have had Traveler's for 10+ years and really like them. Insurance only went up slightly vs. my old Toyota Tundra. We use them for our home as well. Never had an issue with claims and rates never went up due to a claim. Even had to file for a total loss when an uninsured illegal T-Boned my wife's Highlander and rolled her over 1-1/2 times (she walked away from the accident!). No issues at all. I will say one thing - I got nowhere with SC Taxes. We pay property tax on our vehicles vs. a sales tax when buying it. The NV is classified as a true 1 Ton/commercial use vehicle so my taxes went up vs. the truck. Same as with an Excursion. I'm curious if the Transit 350 series are classified as the same.

Are any other windows down? You can get some nasty harmonics with the right window space open and a certain speed. Just like blowing air over an open bottle and making a tone from it. With vehicles it is usually sub harmonics and can get crazy. One of my old cars was bad with that and my wife's Sienna does it.

Never happened in 19,000 miles so far. Check the latches to make sure they are tight. I am not sure if there is an adjustment on them or not to make them even tighter. We dont open ours much, maybe 2 or 3 times total since we've had the van just due to it being awkward with the latches so far apart.

I'd love the new 5.6 V8 or the Cummins but it was noted in another thread Nissan wants to charge a $10K premium on the GAS motor! That is just insane and they would shoot themselves in the foot. They'd have to run one of those domestic "sales" where they knock $8K to $9K off the price. I dont see that GM motor doing well in a van that size. I could only see it doing well for local fleet operators or tradesman who stay in the city where the MPG increase would be worth it. if you read the article it seems most are Transit fans in the comments. http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/03/gm-to-put-baby-duramax-in-full-size-vans.html

Interesting project they have. Wonder why it doesnt have a 4x4 conversion. I was trying to find info on the Icon suspension but they didnt have anything I could locate. Do stock Titan parts fit?

Payload of a 2500 High Roof V6 = 3000 lbs. Payload of a 3500 High Roof V8 = 3600 lbs The V8 2500 has 120 lbs Less capacity but they dont make a V6 3500. Most of that is likely the rear springs in the 3500. I know on the Ford SuperDuty F250 vs F350 all parts used to be identical other than an extra helper spring on the F350. It was a big scam for the extra money of the "1 Ton" 350 and many contractors were buying the F250 and adding in the extra spring to save a lot of money. I personally dont know what parts other than the springs may be different in the 2500 vs. 3500. 700 lbs capacity is a pretty good amount. I would guess you have nowhere near 3000 lbs of stuff in your van! All above was easily found on the factory specs page - http://www.nissancommercialvehicles.com/nv-cargo/specs

It was more of a pain than most dashes but a lot of new vehicles are like that these days. Be happy you can get the radio out, some companies have made them pretty much completely integrated! Biggest issue for me which is why I wrote that up was the dash vents. Getting them seated right was a pain and it took me a bit to get them figured out for some reason. Everything else is normal dash removal stuff, just more of it. There are a few guys who have done camper builds and other work, hopefully they chime in on the best wire routing options from the rear.

Best bet? Find a good offroad shop and have them make you exactly what you want. The cost will probably be very close to something like the Aluminess bumper but you can customize it the way you want it. Biggest downside is time. It can take weeks to get one put together and they'll need the van there for a while to mock it up and test fit.