At 33000 miles my rear Differential, I think it is called the pinion seal, failed. Nissan replacing entire rear-end under warranty obviously. Rear dif oil blened with metal. Very dissapointed. Heaviest I have ever towed is about 2000 pounds, and regulary my Jetski under 1000 lbs with trailer . I did hear a very faint whine when drivetrain was under load for a few weeks. So faint I thought it was me. Until a friend asked what the noise was. To late then. Returned from a trip with my jetski to find it covered in rear diff. oil. Dealer has had it for a week. Part on backorder... not sure how many rearends are sitting in U.S. waiting to be needed.

Has anyone else had any problems or heard of any with this rear end. What other Nissans use this rear diff. Titan? Frontier?

Drive train warranty is for 60,000 M Is it possible to get them to warranty the new Rear-end for a full 60000 or am I only able to have coverage for the remainder of my 33000-60000 = 27000m.

Thanks for any input. Love the Xterra otherwise.:eek:

Are you 6-speed or automatic? They have different rears. The 6-speed rear is nearly identical to the Titan one (based on the Dana 44), the other is a revision of a rather old design.

Either way I haven't heard of any common problems with the 2005/2006 Xterra rear diffs, and a pinion seal failure would certainly qualify as a random problem.

It is the Automatic Trans. The only problems any of the service people had mentioined seeing was a couple of Titans with a clunk in the rear diff. Nothing like what I have.

Thanks for responding.

Al

Just realized that the Dana 44 is a "rather old design" too...