What Should I Do?

Maintenance/Repairs
,
1

I drive a 2008 Nissan Frontier, bought new in Nov. 2007 with 53,000 miles on it. A few months ago, at about 50,000 miles, an annoying clattering noise started coming out of the dash. The noise was coming from the vent area of the passenger side dash and occurs when I start the vehicle or adjust the AC from Max to norm. I went online and found that the noise occurs in many of the full size Nissan SUVs, and is a failing Vent Actuator part. Doing further research, I learned, the part is fairly cheap, but buried in the dash and difficult to get to. Of course that means that labor is very expensive to replace this part. Nobody seems to want to take the time to replace the part, except the dealer who wants $500 labor to do it. I have found dash diagrams and since it is cooling off lam thinking about taking on the project myself. With the vehicle having such low mileage, and little stress being put on the part, I feel that the part is of low quality and replacement should be covered on some kind of warranty. Nissan probably feels it is not a safety issue, but the noise is very annoying, and certainly lowers the value of my vehicle, that has otherwise been pampered and in like new condition. Do you have any experience with this problem or can give me advise as to what direction or action I should take?

Thanks so much, Joe

2

Go for it .
If you have the basic mechanical skills to ‘‘take apart and put back together’’ then time is the only caveat.
Open a whole weekend to be able to have the truck parked, get the operation instructions , take pictures along the way to aid in re-assembly , and…
take apart,
put back together.

Do not expect their five hour job to take you that little and don’t try to rush either.
I’ve found that I can tackle many jobs on a d.i.y. basis ( home or auto ) if I’m not so concerned with beating the clock.

Six years old will not have any warranty on it despite the mileage.
Blend door motors are relatively fragile by design as they are a series of little plastic gears.
Check for debris inside the plenum as a possible reason it may have had enough trouble moving to damage the first one.