Xcellent! Party on with the X-Terra!

Well, I was gonna just chill today and give my back a break but I got restless.  Screw it, I might as well install the rear brakes now.

Quick YouTube video review to get the torque specs and brush up on my sliding caliper brake job tips.

14mm bolts X2 to remove the caliper

Shop said the old pads had 1mm left.  Hmm.  More like 2-3mm on the outer pad on this side, other side outer pad was a little less.  Oh well, here anyways

19mm bolts X2 to remove the carrier.  Rotor pops right off, remove the rubber plug from where the rotor retaining screw would go it it had one and

put it in the new rotor. 

Put the new rotor on, put the caliper carrier back on, torque the bolts to 76ft lbs.  Put new pad retaining springs on.  Grease them and the pads, pop the pads in.

Retract the piston on the caliper, put it into place.  14mm bolts back in, torque to 24 ft lbs.  Wheel back on, torque to 98ft lbs.  Do the other side and done.

So the check engine light is back on.  Dammit!!  P2A00 code this time, which is slightly different than the last time.  Called the shop, it's going back to them next Thursday, they were willing to have us drop it off before that but my daughter needs a car.

So WTF is going on here?  I've never had a car throw persistent O2 sensor codes like this.  They throw an O2 code, I replace it and it's gone for good.

Now this car has had two different O2 sensors, clearly that's not what is causing the code to set, the shop smoke tested it and there are no upstream leaks that would trigger this.  What else can it be?  It won't pass emissions with this code set, so I've gotta get it fixed....

Have you checked continuity between the O2 (all of them) and the computer?  I'm sure there is an Ohm reading procedure in the FSM.

Long shot maybe, but I had a 96 4runner that was basically stock and not messed with that just one random day popped an O2 sensor code and would not go away even with multiple new bosch sensors and computer resets and  ECM solder checks.

Somewhere in the harness was a wire break and I had a shop just bypass the whole harness with new wires from the sensors to the back of the computer.

In reply to onemanarmy :

I'm not sure if the shop checked to see if all the O2's were reading, they did say that this new one was.  The previous owner linked me a video showing that this code can mean that the *rear* O2 sensor can be bad, so right now that's culprit #1.  So I'll ask the shop to check the readings on the rear O2 sensors.  Luckily in my bin of goodies I got from the previous owner is two rear O2 sensors.  Hopefully that fixes it and then the shop refunds me for the front O2 sensor that we didn't actually need...

Sometimes an O2 sensor code can appear when the engine is running too rich or too lean. When that happens, the sensor is just doing its job, but the ECM doesn't believe the data can be right.

This would be so much of a better first car than a 92 XJ!

Well, based on a tip from the previous owner I decided to just replace the rear O2 sensor.  Mostly because I had a new one sitting on my bench that he'd given me when I bought the truck.  Figured I might as well do it, I've got an appointment with shop in about a week if this doesn't do it.  If this does fix it then I probably screwed myself as far as getting some sort of refund from the shop, since they misdiagnosed this and replaced the wrong O2 sensor, but I'll deal with that later.

So removing the O2 isn't that hard but I had to remove part of the aftermarket skid plate to get to it.  Noticed that one of the smaller bolts that holds the plate on snapped off inside the captive threads.  Awesome.

Then it's an O2 sensor socket to break it free, had to use a breaker bar.  So far I'm not impressed with how Nissan put this truck together, they like to hide clips on the back side of things.  Like this one

This holds the two O2 plugs onto a metal tang that's mounted to the tranny.  You'd think they'd clock the harness so that little tab is facing you, to make it easy to depress and then pull the plugs off the tang, right?  Nope, it's literally facing up and towards the tranny.

Then there's this one...

This holds the two parts of the plug together, so sensor to body harness plug.  I couldn't figure out a way to separate these harnesses short of sliding a small flat head screwdriver in there and pushing down on that block.  Again, why make this so difficult?

Anyways I've got the new sensor in and reset the code.  My daughter is going to drive the truck this whole week and I'll see what happens.  My scan tool isn't a good one that can log O2 sensor voltages so I don't know if the old sensor was bad or not.  Hopefully this fixes it, if it doesn't it goes back to the shop.  If it does I'll call them and see if they're willing to refund me for the new O2 sensor and labor to install it since that wasn't what the issue was.  Or fix the leaky rear diff cover on the truck for free.

It's been a week and no more check engine light!  So looks like the rear O2 was bad and I fixed it, which means the shop totally screwed up the diagnosis and I paid them for nothing.  I'll be giving them a call today but honestly I'd be surprised if they do or offer any sort of refund.  I will be crossing them off the list of shops I use, I can replace parts on my own, I don't need to pay shop rate for someone else to do it, I need them to diagnose stuff I can't, that's what I'm paying for.

Great news. Glad to hear the tip helped. Maybe I should have changed it before the armor went on. Hahaha.

Had a talk with the shop and while it was pleasant they made no apologies for their mis diagnosis nor any offer of a refund or to seal up the rear diff and cover labor.

So I won't be going back there, their diagnostic skills aren't good enough for me to pay them...

Well, looks like the problems solved!

Yeah, that shouldn't be like that.  That's the intake boot from the MAF to the throttle body, so post metered air leak.  Drove it home, it runs great!  While it was there I also had him reseal the rear diff, since it was leaking.  Wanted to give him some more work because I finally found a good diagnostician and rear diff fluid always smells like complete ass and I hate dealing with it.

So hopefully that's the end of this saga...

Great news!

Definitely!  In other news my daughter has somehow managed to put a large dent in the rear bumper and just the other day a dent in the passenger rear door.  Sigh, well I bought this specifically so it could get beat up....

In reply to docwyte :

Shrockworks has the solution to your dented bumper. It'll only cost you ~$600 and 8ish weeks.

Thanks for the info, looks like $800 shipped for one.  Right now I'm gonna let her live with a dented bumper as she'll probably add more dents to it.  If we decide to sell the truck, I might buy one then so it looks better...

In reply to docwyte :

It was $628 for the one in the photo shipped to my driveway in Oregon last week. Dunno if that makes any difference to you though.

In reply to thatsnowinnebago :

When I checked it out on their site, with shipping it was $800 to me.  Regardless, unless it was $200 delivered I wouldn't do it.  I have a sneaking suspicion that my daughter isn't finished putting dents in this rig...

In reply to docwyte :

Holy crap, I got lucky. The base price is $200 more than I paid in late June. I thought you were just getting screwed by shipping costs. 

I'm making new mud flaps for my Xterra in the garage and just realized I still have the stock bumper laying around and the box the shrock one came in. You can have it for the cost of shipping. I did snip off the plug end of the license plate lights to use for my new bumper, but the rest is in decent shape. The paint is rubbed off on the top right corner under the step, and there a couple other scratches on the lower left. No rust though. 

In reply to thatsnowinnebago :

That's a very kind offer!  I'll take you up on it, sending you a message now.  Thanks!

docwyte said:

In reply to thatsnowinnebago :

That's a very kind offer!  I'll take you up on it, sending you a message now.  Thanks!

Did it show up yet?

Showed up yesterday, thanks!  Going to toss it in the basement for a bit, not sure my daughter is finished denting up the current bumper, lol

Long live Xterras!

That shrockworks bumper....does that replace the huge pieces of corner plastics too?  Those are the most vulnerable parts.  The center part is pretty stout as is, especially if you have a hitch helping to protect it.

docwyte said:

Showed up yesterday, thanks!  Going to toss it in the basement for a bit, not sure my daughter is finished denting up the current bumper, lol

Haha, good deal. Glad it made to you ok.

onemanarmy said:

Long live Xterras!

That shrockworks bumper....does that replace the huge pieces of corner plastics too?  Those are the most vulnerable parts.  The center part is pretty stout as is, especially if you have a hitch helping to protect it.

It does not. There's very few (maybe two?) manufacturers that replace the plastic corners and they don't look great. The nice part with replacing the center is that you can get rid of the hitch and gain a ton of departure angle. Shrockworks even rates their hitch for 5000 lbs.  I don't think anyone else actually rates their bumper.