Nissan Versa Tensioner Pulley Issue

[Frank]

Hey guys/girls.

My fiancee has a 09 Versa 1.8L hatchback auto.
She has been noticing vibrations coming out of the engine bay that she can feel in the cabin ( noise) and vibration in the pedals. Her car has about 69k on the clock. Said vibrations are not really shown in park or neutral or reverse, only drive, and only after the car has been on the road for a while.

I took some time from working on the Z to check out her car and see what may be going on. This is what I found.

* After her accident about a year ago, the body shop did a piss poor job at putting her intake back together so it vibrates like all hell. This also happened

* Her tensioner pulley and or the entire tensioner assembly seems to be bad. ( you can see in the videos)

* In the last video, while the car is in drive ( and ebrake on for my safety) you can see how I cause changes in the vibrations on parts in the engine compartment. This was last night so I will have to start taking things apart to see what is most likely rubbing.

* I have not done a compression check to see if the motor is fine ( yet) But some people on the Nissan forums said it might be belt slap I am hearing, but to me it does not seem that way.

[b][i][u]My questions are:
[/u][/i][/b]

A: The FSM calls for a 50 Torx to be used to remove the entire tensioner pulley assembly but all of my 50Trx
tools are too large to fit in the space ( watch the video to see the crappy clearance)

What tool can I use with a size 50 Torx bit and have enough leverage to take this guy out?

B: Per the video, would you guys conclude as well that the tensioner needs replacing? ( I like redundancy)

C: What else do you guys think might be wrong?

Here is the pic of the FSM diagram

[IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/1553rqb.jpg[/IMG]

Here is a side pic of where the pulley is

[IMG]http://i58.tinypic.com/2aj47d0.jpg[/IMG]

Now the videos

( DO NOT DO WHAT I DID ;D)

You can see me making the noise here with the plastic intake.

Topic

[EricTheCarGuy]

First, awesome post. I love the detail you put into it. I really appreciate the time you put into it.

That said, I do think the tensioner is an issue and you should replace it. Thing is, I’m not sure if that’s what’s causing your vibration. That could be another issue. Given that it was in a collision, it could be any number of things. Body shops often focus on the exterior of a vehicle. Insurance adjusters do as well. Unfortunately, that sometimes leaves the mechanical operation out of the equation. Something may have been damaged during the collision that is causing the vibration. Not sure if it’s an engine mount or something like that. In addition, the way the idle behaves while the AC is on could indicate that there might be a problem with the AC compressor or the idle system that’s suppose to bump the idle with the AC is on.

Collisions make things difficult based on what happened during the collision, and what was repaired or NOT repaired as a result.

I wrote this article on diagnosing vibrations that you might find helpful.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/determining-the-causes-of-vehicle-vibrations

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress. You might consider starting with that tensioner and going from there.

[Frank]

Thank you for your response and affirmation that the pulley needs replacing. I have never worked on a vehicle with an automatic tension pulley so that was new to me.

The collision was honestly very superficial. I saw the car at the crash site, and though one can never be 100% sure of the damage, it seemed to be mostly cosmetic, the radiator had not even moved from its stock position. Granted, after she got the car back I had to move some things around that were placed incorrectly by the body shop, as well as add some bolts that were missing. Honestly I was not happy with the job and I could not really argue with her insurance since the car was deemed “used” when she bought it. I also know the shop used “used” parts as part of their rebuild so anything they swapped out at this point could be making noise.

The ECU is not throwing any codes, and no issues are noticed when the car is placed in neutral. Usually in my experience the car will continue to have issues if its cylinder related even in neutral, and especially in gear. ( like my Z when 2 of the spark plug packs fried)
I did not check her engine mounts, but the engine seems to stay in position when getting into gear ( as in you put the car in drive with the brake in and see if it moves a whole lot, at least that how I check if they have gone bad, outside of directly looking at them)

As for the tool to get the tensioner off I think I might order this, and hope it fits with the clearing, unless you have any suggestions for a 50T Torx bit.

[IMG]http://i60.tinypic.com/2lj1emf.jpg[/IMG]

Thank you for the link, I did find that prior to this issue and I will defiantly use is to get her car back to working condition.

Thanks Eric again!

[PaulKim]

I agree with Eric about collision repair. My accord had a BAD vibration problem after a repair, turning on the AC at idle amplified the problem. After a lot of arguing with insurance and shop, the insurance told me to take to another shop for investigation. Turns out in the repair they sourced a cheap solid engine mount when the Honda OEM was an oil filled one. Replacing that mount solved the problem.

[Frank]

I will check the motor mounts this weekend. Things seem to be pointing in that as an issue…

What sucks is that she changed insurances several months after her last accident, so I think talking to them to cover the fix costs will be wasted time

[EricTheCarGuy]

You’re probably right that the insurance company is a waste of time. Keep us posted on those engine mounts and good luck.

[Author]

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