BUM NOTE

I have just bought a 2007 Nissan Note 1600 petrol, sold as seen, so I expected a few niggles, even though it’s only done 40,000 miles and has a service history. After a full service, new pads and discs, and a drivebelt, there was still a niggling noise from the front nearside that sounded as though a cable or similar was occasionally tapping the bulkhead. On investigation, I discovered that the front subframe mounting into the left-hand chassis leg had been ripped out of the chassis.

As an engineer, I can see that there is what appears to be a poor design, in my opinion, that makes it inevitable that this fixing will fail after quite a low mileage. Perusing the online Nissan forums, there seem to be other owners experiencing the same problem. My concern is that as it can’t be readily seen, it could be missed on inspection and repairing it by plating it will mean it will eventually fail again.

A more effective repair would be to plate it, but use a longer retaining bolt that goes right through the chassis leg, with an inner metal tube to stop the leg crushing when the bolt is tightened. An analysis of the forces and leverage involved show that this repair would alleviate the tendency for the chassis to crack and rip out the existing captive nut. Bryan Denham