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08 Armada Phoenix

3K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  Glen 
#1 ·
I just bought an 08 Armada for around 10k from a local Nissan dealership in Phoenix. It had 1 owner, and is pretty clean considering it has high miles.
I joined this site so I have somewhere to search when looking into parts, troubleshooting issues, or learning about these tanks.

I bought this because I take cross country road trips with the wife and kids every year, and the sentra is getting too small as the kids get bigger. I was looking at 08-12 Pathfinders, but I noticed they cost more than Armadas. Ive owned only nissans since 2006, so I feel comfortable sticking to them. My 06 spec-v I bought new, built and installed a turbo kit, drove it a few more years, and sold it. I raced and beat that car. It handled the turbo with stock internals and stock clutch. Never had one issue in my 7 years of ownership. I did all the work, including the tuning on my own. I bought my wife a 2012 se-r new in 2011. We drove coast to coast twice, plus many small road trips. She drives the kids around everyday. It has 60k on it and never broke down. I bought my 04 Frontier when I sold my spec-v 2 years ago with 140k miles. I haven't had to put one penny into repairs. I'm selling it now because we bought the Armada.

That is why I stuck with Nissan. I really hope the Armada is as good to me as my other Nissans. Right now I need to find the best choice for a cold air intake and catback exhaust. I also want to look into headers. I'd like to go catless all the way back, but need to look into preventing throwing a code. On my sentra, my exhaust was 3" from the turbo back with no cats. I put a spacer on the 2nd o2 sensor, so the light stayed off. If that trick works with the truck, Ill use o2 spacers. If not, i'll leave it alone and just do a catback system. I'll look into other little things that might make it quicker and somewhat fun to drive.
 

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#2 ·
Good background info.

Besides, your Armada does look very clean. Congrats on your purchase and welcome to the club.

How many miles do you currently have on the Armada? For around $10,000, I am guessing the mileage might be above 150,000?

Since you do work a lot on your cars, I am sure you will have no problems with this Armada. I never knew how to do things on cars and learning from this site, I have been amazed at what I have learned and did on my Armada. This site together with www.titantalk.com is definitely your reference to any problem on our Armadas.

If you are looking to do a major tune up on your Armada, this is my suggestion below. What I did to my own Armada.

http://www.clubarmada.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50130
 
#3 ·
139k. It was bought at a Nissan dealership, so they inspected it pretty good. The previous owner was the first, and the carfax shows all the service history because they always took it to the dealer. I called the service dept and asked what they did. He said they replaced the power steering pump, oil cooler o-ring, battery, and changed the oil. My guess is, the previous owner brought it in to fix the power steering pump, and decided to trade it in. The dealer fixed it and put it on the lot. That probably explains why there is wet power steering fluid in the bottom of the engine bay, but no leak. Other things that were done recently were a coolant flush and sending unit replaced. I dont see spark plugs or fuel pump on the history, so I'll probably replace them before my drive from AZ to NY this summer. Until then, I just drive it 2 miles to work each day. My wife uses the Sentra for daily errands. What kind of gas mileage should I expect for a road trip from AZ to NY? One thing I am happy about is that it has 4 wheel disc brakes. Also, I was surprised it still has the dvd remote and the 2 sets of wireless headphones. Usually on a 8 year old trade-in, they'd be lost or broken. It did only come with 1 key fob, so I'll have to get another one.
 
#4 ·
That sounds nice. You have yourself a good rig then. And if you drive such few miles, then this truck would last you forever. There are a few people on here with more than 300,000 miles on odometer. Check out the high mileage thread.

Glad to see you still have the remote and headphones. That is good.

As for mileage to expect, well, I get about 14 miles to the gallon. There are some people here that get close to 20. But I think an average might be about 16 miles to the gallon. Others can chime in what they get.

I bought my Armada with one fob also. I bought a used one on ebay for $45 about a month after I bought my Armada. I still have to take it to the dealership so they can cut me a key and then insert it in the fob and program the new key and fob with the current key and fob to the truck.
 
#5 ·
You can program the fob yourself. I've done it on several cars. Not sure if it's the same method on all cars though. I'm ordering a catback and cold air intake today. I decided on the Volant intake. I'm trying to figure out right now which exhaust, but haven't found a clear winner yet. Looks like lot of people use the Gibson, so maybe that one.
 
#7 ·
I just got my manifolds off, and am currently waiting for the uprev tune.
Thanks to Jeff at cajun for telling me about the manifold issue. Both of mine were cracked. I found out about it days after buying the truck. The manifolds were a huge pain in the butt to remove. I'm taking a break and will put the new ones on soon. I won't be able to follow proper torque specs, so hopefully I can do it right.

(Once I'm done with this, I need to figure out why I keep throwing code P0101 on my 2012 Sentra SE-R. It's a MAF sensor code. The car has much less power than I remember (wifes car I never drive it). I cleaned the MAF, but it came back on. Can I use my cipher cable to clear and read codes on my other Nissans? If so, how do I do that?)
 

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#8 ·
Finished installing my exhaust, and welded the joints on the catback. It sounds nice. I haven't gotten on the throttle yet. Waiting for my tune from uprev. The ECU isn't supported, so I had to send it to uprev and it'll take a couple weeks.
 

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#9 ·
Hello Glenn and welcome on board! Great to have you here. Your Armada looks really nice and you're doing great job on it. This place is a great resource with tons of useful information and knowledgeable guys. Be sure to reach out if anything needed!
 
#11 ·
Any knowledge or input on these following topics will help:

Over the last month, I keep getting code p0430. I assume it's because of the high flow cats, so I'll have the tuner turn it off with Uprev.
Coincidentally, it came on 3 days after I poured in a bottle of Lucas fuel system cleaner in the tank. I never used it before, but it was on sale and I figured I'd try it out. It was right after a 5,000 mile road trip, so I thought it could help. The truck seems to be lacking some power since that trip. Anyways, I cleared the code 3 times with my cipher, but it kept coming back.

There are a few things I need to work on this winter, but I need to do my research on these topics.

#1- I need to replace the rack and pinion. It developed a slow leak at the top where the shaft goes in. Everyday I have to crawl under and wipe the drip with a rag so it doesn't drip onto my driveway overnight. Since the truck has 150k miles, and everythings original, I'm doing a full suspension overhaul. Rack, upper and lower control arms, end links, tie rods, shocks, struts. I did the research on getting rid of the air leveling system, and am buying the PRG airbag delete kit. That will also take care of the front shocks. Should I use my current front springs with those Bilsteins? Would buying new coil springs be overkill? I never heard of coil springs going bad. Do I need to buy any kind of camber adjusting bolts or anything? Or is the camber adjustable? I figure I'll throw in the Sway bar bushings and rear diff bushings while I'm ordering stuff from PRG. Once thats all done, it should handle better than new.

#2- a/c door actuator. I just did the rear one a few months ago, and now the front one is clicking. I have to do some research on getting into that.

#3- I would love to get rid of the mechanical fan and convert to an electrical fan. I searched for a custom kit for the Armada, but no luck. Anyone know if they exist? If not, I just started researching this topic. If anyone knows who has done this, let me know. I'll just see how they did it. I will buy a better radiator and a shroud and fan that fit it. I don't know how to choose a fan. I also don't know how to wire it where it turns on and off when it should on its own. When I had a flex-a-lite one on my sentra, I had it hooked up to a toggle switch and I used manually it according to my temperature gauge. I don't want to do it that way.

I will keep looking for answers, and soon will be ready to start getting my parts together. finding out about PRG kit today was a big help.
 
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