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'92 Nissan Sentra-costly exhaust problem ?

A friend is offering to sell me his old car-cheap. It runs OK, but it's quite noisy. He said the guy he took it to quoted him $1200 to fix the exhaust system. He got another car instead.

He isn't mechanically-minded, I don't know who he took the car to or what they said needed to be done.

I have started the car, and given it a quick once-over. From the tailpipe to the converter looks quite new. The converter looks iffy. The exhaust is leaking somewhere in front of the converter but I don't see exhaust in the engine compartment (viewed from the top).

I looked at some on-line shops and didn't see anything that would cost that much to replace.

Am I missing something? Or was my friend just being played for a sucker/misunderstood what was quoted for?

PB

Reply to
Plague Boy
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Since the leak is ahead of the converter, just replacing the leaking front exhaust pipe means detaching the old one from the converter. Guaranteed the nuts and bolts on both ends of the converter are totally rusted and impossible to undo. That means a lot of labor to drop the whole exhaust and then hacksaw the bolts off. I imagine most shops will tell the customer that it will cost so much in labor to take apart the old system that they might as well replace the entire exhaust system. At typical shop mark-ups plus labor and all the other BS, you'll reach $1200 pretty easily.

If you can loosen the nuts holding the front exhaust pipe to the exhaust manifold (typically a triangular flange with three nuts that usually don't freeze up), then you drop the front of the exhaust with the converter attached and start hacksawing the bolts holding the converter to the front exhaust pipe. The front exhaust pipe is probably $100 or so. You then put new bolts and nuts in to attach the new exhaust pipe to the old converter. Be sure to use lots and lots of anti-seize compund on the new nuts and bolts. It's a good idea to turn those nuts every once and while when you happen to be under there in the future so that the next repair will be easier. Good luck. Al

Reply to
al

I'm not sure this applies to you, but in the 96 thru 99 Sentras, the exhaust manifold and the catalytic converter are one piece, and so are quite expensive to replace.

I put headers on my 98 Sentra, thereby deleting the cat converter and I'm able to pass emissions b/c they test the computer now, not the exhaust. The secondary O2 on the car doesn't seem to notice that the cat is missing:)

CD

Reply to
Codifus

Sincere thanks to both people who replied.

The person selling me the Nissan hit a deer with his Hyundai, rendering the hood un-openable. When the "Check Engine" light came on and stayed on, he brought it to me for an emergency hoodectomy (successful). The result of all this is that the Nissan is now safely ensconced in my driveway. I will put it up on ramps this weekend and see what the problem is

Two issues: One, what might this car need besides the obvious (plugs, wires, belts, filters and a THOROUGH cleaning inside and out). Car has been neglected, although the AC has been repaired and new batt/alt last fall. I've never had a Nissan before and I don't know their quirks .

Two, the driver's door sags, I mean it drops down when you open it. Now, I can live with that, I've lived with worse. Still, nothing says "Junker" like a door sagging every single time you get in or out. How hard might this be to fix? I presume the hinge pin or hinge is worn from no lubrication, and that fixing it would mean removing the door and replacing the hinge assembly, or the entire door. Any tips or tricks that would help me with this?

I have a fairly extensive set of tools, breaker bars, compressor and air tools, hand impact driver etc.

PB

Reply to
Plague Boy

The general quirks I know about nissans is that most of them have timing chain motors. If their oil change regimen is neglected, you tend to see problems like the timing chain idler pulley start to make noise. The symptom is your car sounding like a diesel when it's idling. Get that taken care of as soon as you can because if you don't, the timing chain will fail....new motor.

Also, distributors. Some of the Nissan (Sentras, Altimas) motors have their distributor driven by the exhaust cam. If your distributor is mounted on one side of the cam cover, then that's the type I'm referring to. These distributors are actually 2 things in one, a normal distrobutor and a cam position sensor. Not a bug or a bad thing, but after about 150,000 miles, the oil seal within the distributor fails. Oil leaks into the electronics of the cam sensor and your car has trouble starting and staying running. Solution: replace the entire distributor.

Oil seals. The main oil seal under the belts on the crankshaft tend to go on Sentras. You'll know when you see oil all over the place by the belts, alternator etc. I'm on my second sentra and it has that leak as well. I've never done the job. Had the mechanic take care of it for about $250. I'm told that all you have to do is remove the belts, get under the car and replace the seal from there.

Despite these quitrks which are mainly due to old age of the vehicle and abuse/neglect, Nissan makes some great motors.

CD

Reply to
codifus

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