My conversation with a Nissan field engineer

Hey all,

So yesterday I went to pick up my Armada for the brake fix, and I had a good conversation with Glen Nakagawa, a Nissan field engineer. Glen was very knowledgable and answered all of my questions thoroughly (although in engineer speak- lucky I'm an engineer as well)

Some of my recollections:

Brakes - Not too much new here from what we've heard. The new parts are out, the rotors are thicker, and Glen assured me the newest parts completely and permanently fix the brake problem. One interesting tidbit- Nissan's goal with these newest parts was to get the brakes to last "for the life of the vehicle". I didn't press him on details of that statement as to what constituted "life". He confirmed that the whole brake problem came about because of some problems with their brake supplier. Nissan has had to go back to their suppliers and tweak each step of their manufacturing to correct the problems. This was one of the major tasks of the engineers that came from Japan. They are still in the process of getting their suppliers and assembly lines completely lined out, but it's vastly better than when they started.

Front two window rattle issues- I go back in on Tuesday for new window regulators and runners. Glen said also there was an issue with the 04's that has since been corrected with the window geometry. The fix they're going to apply for this is to adjust the regulators and cabling and put newly designed runners in. Right now, he explained, the windows have some play in them. The new fix will get rid of that. My front two windows sort of bounce up and down when I roll them down, and this fix is supposed to get rid of that as well. Rattle-wise his statement was "well, vinyl and plastic gets harder when it's colder in the cabin, and rattles will happen". Kind of brushed me off on that, but whatever. Hopefully they'll modify their materials a little bit to help with rattles.

Nissan has been hearing us on the issues, and have been taking steps to correct and improve. From what I gathered, (and asked about) the next couple of model years should see good improvement in build quality. They're also excited about some new models coming out to compete with some of the smaller, inexpensive models like Scion.

Overall it was a good conversation. I had to nail him down on my first supposed "permanent brake fix" but he did at least confirm that my dealer didn't put the "permanent parts" on when they had it for two weeks a couple of months back. Ultimately I don't know if Nissan just didn't send the parts or if the dealer put them on someone else's vehicle, but they weren't on my Armada. The new rotors look different- they have this lip looking thing on the back side of them. They feel tighter than they ever had, so I'm hopeful. Even wifey commented about how much better they are now, so with my Tuesday visit to fix the windows hopefully I won't be back in for any problems for a long, long time. I wonder how long this thing will last? We'll see..I think I'm gonna try to hit 300k or so before I get rid of it.