A serious fault has resulted in several owners of Nissan’s old-style D22 Pickup being hit by a catastrophic engine failure. The problem is that the con rod bearings wear out more quickly than anticipated; generally when the pick-up has clocked up more than 50,000 miles and is at least three years old. The driver hears a loud knocking then an even louder bang if he does not stop immediately as the engine suffers massive and usually terminal damage. Once this has happened it is cheaper to change rather than rebuild it.
Nissan is contacting owners to alert them to the defect — it was rectified on the production line from August 2006 onwards — and has extended D22’s warranty to five years/93,000 miles. Owners who fear their pick-up may be affected should contact their local dealer without delay.
The Pickup was marketed in Britain between 2001 and 2007. “We sold 19,651 of these vehicles in the UK and 2.4 per cent of them have suffered from this problem so far,” says a Nissan spokesman. “Some 150,000 have been sold across Europe and 1,333 have been hit by failures to date.”
Because the fault has already been addressed D22’s NP300 successor won’t be affected, says Nissan, even though it employs the same engine block.
