The Song Remains The Same

"wanderwebster" (wanderwebster) 02/16/2017 at 10:15 • Filed to: Road Trip, Nissan, Xterra, A love story, Adventures, Camping

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It’s another beautiful South Florida afternoon and once again I find myself staring cluelessly at the undercarriage of my Xterra. I’m quickly reminded of how little mechanical knowledge I actually have.

Some time in 2012 I hatched the idea to take a road trip, but not just any road trip. This was going to be a grand tour of the western United States. Dozens of national parks. Tens of thousands of miles. It was going to be epic. I had ridden from Chicago to Yellowstone the year before with my uncle and cousin, so between that and my lack of direction after years of messing around in college I found my motivation. By late fall it was officially a plan, but one thing that was not part of the plan was my 2004 Pontiac Vibe. I wanted a truck.

Pictured: Not Part of the Plan

Four wheel drive. Three pedals. These were my requirements. The problem with that, unfortunately, was that I had to look at vehicles nearly my age in order to fit my price range. I should say it wasn’t a problem for me, but my parents made it clear that they preferred that I get something that wasn’t closing in on antique status. Since I had been living at home rent free for a while I felt it was the least I could do.

Newer trucks and SUVs with those boxes ticked were hard enough to come by within the budget. I searched and searched, but never pulled the trigger on anything. I don’t even remember what I was looking for. I know Rangers were on the short list. Jeeps were too expensive. Eventually I began to search “manual 4x4” just to see what came up. The Xterra wasn’t even on my radar, but when I came across the 2004 with less than 50,000 miles, four wheel drive and a five speed gearbox, I had to check it out.

In February of 2013, I drove it home. The only thing immediately wrong with it was the headliner, which was sagging in multiple places. Other than that it looked brand new. During the next eight months I would put over 30,000 miles on the truck through twenty-two states and two Canadian provinces. I started with a test trip to the keys, and in May I headed west.

Test run in Long Key State Park, FL

Savannah, GA

Above the clouds after my first night camping. Cheaha State Park, AL

Big Bend National Park, TX

Other than needing the AC compressor replaced about a week into the trip, it ran without a hitch.

Southeast UT

Rocky Mountain National Park, CO

Sunset overlooking Grand Junction, CO

I ended up sleeping in the back of the truck nearly every night of the trip. When I had visitors we slept in something else, but most of the time I was by myself and it worked perfectly. I would drive around until I was done for the day, and as soon as I found a place to park I crawled into the back and went to bed. There was no setup or tear down; it really couldn’t have been much easier.

Somewhere in WY, I think

North entrance to Yellowstone National Park, MT

Once I got home I paid it off and it was relegated to daily driver status. Another attempt at school began. Work returned to the fold. Gone were the days of mountain adventures and a new era of monotonous driving was ushered in.

It’s served well as a beach truck and an occasional road tripper, but with the routine came neglect. Things were put off or ignored completely. That came back to bite me in the ass while driving home one night during a sudden downpour on I-95. Thanks to two bald rear tires and too much speed for the rain, I hydroplaned and did a 180 into the median wall. At first the damage didn’t seem so bad, but the little scrape on the rear fender was the least of my worries. A bent axle, bent axle housing, bent wheel, and two broken rear springs later and it was out of commission. It could’ve been a lot worse, but it still wasn’t great.

Better days. Sunset near Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO

After a few months of finding more issues the deeper we dug, it was finally road worthy again. I didn’t figure out that the motor mount was screwed up until months later while changing my oil. By then it was leaking coolant and I still hadn’t replaced the driver’s side valve cover gasket that had also been leaking. Since the engine was tilted, the intake hose didn’t want to stay attached to the filter box and it was creating a vacuum leak. The scheduled timing belt change was fast approaching and I was faced with a choice: dump some money into it and let it live, or bail and move on.

So I thought about it. I shopped around for something different. I even went to test drive a Focus ST, but before I even got to the dealership, deep down I knew it wasn’t going to matter. I kept thinking about making payments for the next four, five, six years and how long that really is. How much I’d changed in the last four, five, six years. I thought about the ease with which I could leave and go wherever I wanted with the Xterra and how that would be limited with just about anything else. I also thought about spending all of that saved money on a car instead of funding the next adventure, and my mind was made up.

Grand Teton National Park, WY

Four new tires, a new motor mount, a new valve cover gasket, a new cooling system, a new timing belt and I’m out a couple grand. But this calls for a celebration. A return to the glory days. A trip up the Blue Ridge, which I hadn’t been on since I was a kid.

Driving through the outskirts of Hurricane Matthew at 5000 ft. Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

Sunset in Shenandoah National Park, VA

Two weeks seems pitiful by comparison, but it was a taste of what I had been missing. A welcome departure from the daily grind, and it was gone as quickly as it materialized.

Blue Ridge Parkway, VA

Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

When I got back I changed the spark plugs and wires (except #6, which is impossible to get to and I regret not having them do it when it was in the shop and disassembled), changed the oil and filter, and got a new air filter. I was hoping the plugs would fix the pinging I’d noticed under load on the highway, and they seem to have done the job. But my gas mileage has since dropped fifteen to twenty percent, a vacuum leak recently appeared and disappeared within a day, it still leaks who-knows-what from who-knows-where, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s burning oil too. I think we’ve established that the rear main seal is one of the leaks, but considering how widespread the grime is I’m sure there’s at least one or two more.

I’m planning to take my next adventure this summer, but it’s getting down to crunch time. May will be here before I know it. Once again I find myself wondering if it’s worth continuing to fix what I have. I can think up plenty of reasons to switch to something like a Sprinter, but the nostalgia factor and daily practicality of the X are hard to deny. I’m just not sure if it’s time to let go.

PartyPooper2012 > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 10:22

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Your car takes crazy adventures. My car sits in my driveway at night and in office parking lot during day. Sometimes I take it to a supermarket

jasmits > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 10:34

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Hey, good for you! My dream is to take a trip like that

I bought this guy with the same intentions and similar requirements(my parents used to be like yours on the vehicle age but I guess i’ve worn them down to “fine Jason, buy whatever crapcan you want”) at the end of last summer but with a packed school and work schedule I’ve only been able to really enjoy it for the week I took to drive out to school in Pennsylvania from home in Oregon. I’m hoping to take a much longer adventure on my way back after graduation this spring(either back to Oregon or wherever life decides to take me, I am set on going back west). An old 4x4 never seems to be totally trouble free but it sure is fun.

TheRealBicycleBuck > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 10:44

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Nice write-up. I took a grand tour of the western U.S. back when I was young. My mom was along for the ride, so we stayed in hotels. We were on the road for a month, but a week was spent with an uncle in the pacific NW. You can imagine the bills for 21 nights.

I’ve dreamed of a proper rig for doing a tour with my kids. Someday.... 

benjrblant > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 11:05

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Sounds awesome, and great read.

Plans for any more write-ups of your trips?

vicali > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 11:13

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Keep, Keep, Keep, Keep....

oh and you should be over here too;

http://overland.kinja.com/

deekster_caddy > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 11:15

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Other than needing the AC compressor replaced about a week into the trip, it ran without a hitch.

Dude! Almost all of your pictures show the hitch!

Seriously, that’s a lot of fun. Everybody needs to do this at some point in their life. There is so much of this country to see and explore, do it before we have border patrols in every state.

Before I started a family, I did a 6 week 12,000 mile trip in this with my best friend - it had almost 300,000 miles on it before we went on the trip, and only two months before we headed out I had swapped an old Buick 455 in place of the 350. Great way to work the bugs out of a new drivetrain, let me assure you! I will have to find some pics from the trip.

wanderwebster > deekster_caddy 02/16/2017 at 12:01

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Ha! True...

That’s awesome. I hope there weren’t too many kinks to work out but if they don’t show up on that trip they’re probably not worth worrying about

wanderwebster > jasmits 02/16/2017 at 12:06

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Awesome! Now that I think about it, I actually test drove the two door version of that generation 4runner before the dealership came back and said that the other buyer dropped out on the Xterra. After graduation is definitely the time, especially if you’re getting ready to settle into a career...you probably won’t have that much free time again until you retire haha.

wanderwebster > PartyPooper2012 02/16/2017 at 12:09

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I mean, that’s mostly what mine does now so you’re not that far off haha.

wanderwebster > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2017 at 12:13

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Thanks! Yea, most nights I didn’t even pay for a campsite. I stayed in a lot of national forests and on BLM land. It kept it cheap(er). Out of the six months I was gone I spent maybe two or three weeks sleeping indoors when I was with family, the rest was in the back of the truck or in a tent.

PartyPooper2012 > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 12:14

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I wish I lived somewhere near New Mexico/Arizona. Watching breaking bad again... makes me wish I could drive into the desert and go off-roading.... or drive in some woods through mud/snow etc. I don’t know of any places north east where I can... nor do I know how to find such places

wanderwebster > benjrblant 02/16/2017 at 12:18

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I kept a long-winded blog while I was on the trip. I meant to write about the Blue Ridge trip but it never happened. I’m sure I’ll write about this summer though.

wanderwebster > PartyPooper2012 02/16/2017 at 12:26

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I loved the desert. Utah was one of my favorite states, especially the Moab area (Arches is ten minutes from town and Canyonlands is thirty). Anything labeled national or state forest would probably be a good place to start.

wanderwebster > vicali 02/16/2017 at 12:30

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The only time it’s ever left me stranded was when the starter died, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice.

I need to check the overland blog more often.

jasmits > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 12:43

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The two-door ones are super rare, that’s cool. I do think that the added practicality of the four-door trumps the look though.

Yeah, I know. I haven’t found a job yet though so I still don’t know that I won’t end up needing to start over the summer.

wanderwebster > jasmits 02/16/2017 at 13:06

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The rarity was one thing the guy was trying to sell me on. I think I’ve seen one or two on the road since then. At the time I was thinking “hell yea two doors cool four doors bad!” but having four was far more useful.

Yea, traveling is fun and awesome but having money to do it is kinda necessary. Plus you never know when a good job opportunity will come up.

jasmits > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 14:02

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The two doors are cool but especially with the rear tailgate design(you have to wind down the rear window and then the tailgate opens down) it’s nice to have an easy place to toss stuff(shopping, backpack, whatever). Also, when I’m camping I do the same thing you do with a camping mattress in the back and the seats folded down, much nicer to get in and out of the doors than mess with the window all the time

deekster_caddy > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 15:01

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Oh they showed up, believe me. Some self-inflicted, some unexpected, all real. I had bolted my garage upper toolbox to the floor of the truck in the back, so I had a zillion tools and a large bin of spare parts - belts, hoses and such. The good news is that I had anticipated most of the failures, so had the spare part with us and we were back on the road within 30 minutes or so each time something went catastrohpically wrong (which happened quite a lot). Most of the issues were related to overheating... some because I had fans installed that had been on a race car I crashed (the cracked fan blades came off and hit the inside of the hood around 2 AM in Alabama somewhere...), the fuel line ran too close to an exhaust pipe so the gas was boiling and vaporizing before it got to the mechanical fuel pump... stuff like that. Plus, who goes to Phoenix AZ in the middle of July in a truck that’s overheating and towing a camper? Yeah, I did that... stupid!

vicali > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 15:32

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I bet if you tap the starter with a rock next time it will work.

The worst thing the Xterra and Nissans of that vintage had was the Strawberry Milkshake of death, and that only happened to the automatics.

wanderwebster > deekster_caddy 02/16/2017 at 17:22

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Hell it’s big enough to fit the toolbox and just about any spare you’d need. I’m sure that fan blade woke you up! This all sounds very Roadkill haha. That’s pretty much why I ended up going with something newer. When I first had this idea I wanted a project that I would finish and then take across the country, but even if I knew what the hell I was doing (I wouldn’t have) I wouldn’t have finished it by the time I wanted to leave. And my timing was perfect just about everywhere that I went, so I think it worked out pretty well.

wanderwebster > jasmits 02/16/2017 at 17:24

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Yea. I got used to crawling from the driver’s seat to the back passenger’s side. Not the easiest or most comfortable way to get to bed but easy enough that it wasn’t an issue.

wanderwebster > vicali 02/16/2017 at 17:27

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Hopefully there won’t be a next time haha but I’ll keep that in mind. Fortunately that was after I got home so I was able to just call and get a ride

deekster_caddy > wanderwebster 02/16/2017 at 18:45

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Yeah, my friend who went on the trip with me was very impressed, just about every repair led to no more than a 30 minute stop. Once in a while we had a big one... In Phoenix we went to my gf’s parents house (so I could meet them for the first time) after driving 2 days from New Mexico. It was 126 degrees outside and about 180 inside the truck... every temp gauge I had was pegged... we were stuck in traffic at noon on I-10 in downtown phoenix and I didn’t dare stop because I knew it would boil over, so we cranked up the heater to help cool the engine... pulled up in front of their house and when I shut the engine off the pressure blew 4 holes in the radiator, all the coolant puked out in front of their house and I’m like “Hi, I’m your daughter’s boyfriend. Can I borrow your car and do you know any good radiator shops?” My charm must have worked ;)

jasmits > wanderwebster 02/18/2017 at 15:44

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The 4Runner has a very low roof compared to the floor so it’s not very easy to climb about. Why not just use the back doors on the Xterra?