# Intake manifold gasket covred under warranty?



## Vince21 (Jul 11, 2006)

My girlfriend has an '01 Altima. Just recently it started idling rough. I took it to Advance Auto to have the codes read and the only code was P0304 cylinder 4 misfire. I went ahead and replaced the plugs, wires, rotor and dit. cap thinking that one of them may be the problem, and even if they weren't it was time for them to be replaced anyways. So these didn't help the problem. After doing that I jumped on google to find a Nissan forum, which lead me here. I did a quick search and found out about the intake manifold gasket. I ran outside and sprayed some throttle body cleaner on the gasket and the idle smoothed right out. A little more research on here and I decided this isn't something that I wanted to tackle in my apartment complex parking lot. I had my gf bring it to a Nissan dealer for them to check it out. They did their diagnosis and told me what I already knew... tha gasket needed to be replaced. The car has ~65k on it so it is no longer covered under the powertrain warranty. I'm pretty sure the emissions warranty goes up to 80k, but the dealer said this gasket isn't covered under the emissions warranty. Well, this isn't too big of a deal because she has an extended warranty that she was smart enough to buy when she bought the car. She only had to pay a $100 deductible. They also repaired the car pretty quickly. We dropped it off last night, and we just picked it up about an hour ago. Now, the reason I am posting here is should this gasket be covered under the emissions warranty? Also, since I see that this is a common problem for these engines, has anybody gotten Nissan to take responsibility even if it isn't covered under the emissions warranty?

Sorry for the novel, but I just feel like Nissan should be cover this one way or another. If she didn't have the extended warranty she would be out $600+ instead of $100.


----------



## LONDONDERRY (May 19, 2004)

Vince21 said:


> My girlfriend has an '01 Altima. Just recently it started idling rough. I took it to Advance Auto to have the codes read and the only code was P0304 cylinder 4 misfire. I went ahead and replaced the plugs, wires, rotor and dit. cap thinking that one of them may be the problem, and even if they weren't it was time for them to be replaced anyways. So these didn't help the problem. After doing that I jumped on google to find a Nissan forum, which lead me here. I did a quick search and found out about the intake manifold gasket. I ran outside and sprayed some throttle body cleaner on the gasket and the idle smoothed right out. A little more research on here and I decided this isn't something that I wanted to tackle in my apartment complex parking lot. I had my gf bring it to a Nissan dealer for them to check it out. They did their diagnosis and told me what I already knew... tha gasket needed to be replaced. The car has ~65k on it so it is no longer covered under the powertrain warranty. I'm pretty sure the emissions warranty goes up to 80k, but the dealer said this gasket isn't covered under the emissions warranty. Well, this isn't too big of a deal because she has an extended warranty that she was smart enough to buy when she bought the car. She only had to pay a $100 deductible. They also repaired the car pretty quickly. We dropped it off last night, and we just picked it up about an hour ago. Now, the reason I am posting here is should this gasket be covered under the emissions warranty? Also, since I see that this is a common problem for these engines, has anybody gotten Nissan to take responsibility even if it isn't covered under the emissions warranty?
> 
> Sorry for the novel, but I just feel like Nissan should be cover this one way or another. If she didn't have the extended warranty she would be out $600+ instead of $100.


NIssan might be classifying the gasket at part of the powertrain component and not emmissions. Probably because of the gasket is mounted to the engine. Your g/f should read the warrenty policy and ask the dealer any questions that are not cleared.

The gaskets are blowing out because the EGR pipe is mounted to the cylinder wall thus when the pipe gets hot its cooking the gasket, at least thats what I heard on this forum. 

Your not the only person to mention about nissan fessing up to the design defect and issuing a recall notice. Acr's are not perfectly engineered and designed. If you stay on this forum long enough, you'll see what parts tend to fail out on the Altimas over time

Tell your g/f she was fortunate enought to get the ext. warrenty and had the problem fixed for the cost she paid, some people are not so lucky. 

Frank


----------



## Vince21 (Jul 11, 2006)

LONDONDERRY said:


> NIssan might be classifying the gasket at part of the powertrain component and not emmissions. Probably because of the gasket is mounted to the engine. Your g/f should read the warrenty policy and ask the dealer any questions that are not cleared.


I think you are right about it being classified as part of the powertrain. I'll have to read over the warranty again to be sure.





LONDONDERRY said:


> Acr's are not perfectly engineered and designed. If you stay on this forum long enough, you'll see what parts tend to fail out on the Altimas over time


I have a feeling I'll be browsing this forum quite a bit now that her car is getting up there in miles. Forums like this are a great source of information.




LONDONDERRY said:


> Tell your g/f she was fortunate enought to get the ext. warrenty and had the problem fixed for the cost she paid, some people are not so lucky.


That's pretty much what I told her. Over all it was a pretty good experience dealing with the Nissan dealer. This is the first time we have dealt with one.


----------

