With things going well on the parcel front, we decided to splash out and trade the Ford Courier (Number Seven) in for a Nissan X-Trail. We ended up with a 2.2Di SVE from 2003. The later DCi would have been nice but there none around at the time for the money we had to spend.
A fantastic motor to drive, sure footed and easy to manoeuvre with a great driving position, but again, as with most of my cars there were issues. It gradually became gutless - as if the turbo had vanished - not great when you’re trying to zip in and out of traffic around Brighton's busy streets. Of course the problem didn’t arise until it was out of warranty. Some sensor was diagnosed as the cause and was replaced. Yeah, ouch.
A few years later the problem arose again, the same sensor was blamed and the problem fixed. Within six months it had re-occurred. The garage that fitted it said it would have to go to Nissan as it was a warranty claim. Nissan said that it wasn’t said sensor and further diagnostics were necessary. I bet they were. Kerching. By now we’d packed in the parcels and were on the hunt for a caravan so we took at away.
We decided to flog it and was sold to an acquaintance within a couple of weeks who was fully aware of the problem and was happy with the price. Later we heard that he took it to an expert, who diagnosed a completely different issue that was promptly fixed.
The power issue aside though it was a good motor - full leather and all the usual refinements. Very spacious and plenty of room in the back. the 4 x 4 mode was great on the rare occasions we had snow as we could still get out and about with the parcels. We got pretty close to buying another for towing the caravan too.
