Canadian Nissan Truck Club

Fawk I think that takes it off the list.

Compare the purchase price and the expected cost to repair the known defects, add in the fuel...I bet the answer will become clear.

Fuel - the extra fuel costs of the Trailblazer SS, know to be a fuel hog w/6L performance engine, is just marginally worse than the pathfinder. I wish I didn't like the idea of the SS so much, lol. The Envoy is making more sense even if I consider some stupid repairs with it - most are "affordable" ....finding one with low km is the hard part.

Too bad I don't live in Ottawa. Of all the vehicles I have shopped on line for in the last 2 years, a HUGE proportion were in the Ottawa area or at the very least Kingston area... so damn far away. London is a dead zone.

We sell so few Titans, and we service even less, so I can't realistically provide any details.

http://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale ... 0842&Log=0

Bow_Tied wrote: Too bad I don't live in Ottawa. Of all the vehicles I have shopped on line for in the last 2 years, a HUGE proportion were in the Ottawa area or at the very least Kingston area... so damn far away. London is a dead zone.

If there's ever something your serious about and want an impartial set of eyes to look at, just let me know.

Note - there is another option for cracked headers. The Dorman replacements are cheap from RockAuto. I have no idea if they will be longer or shorter lived than the stockers but if you do it yourself you could do it 2-3 times for the cost of long tubes and uprev. There are also "shorty" options that do not require tuning, however you need to swap the cats over which is a pain. Neither of these options opens the 5.6 up like the Long Tubes and UpRev, the 5.6 is a really an impeccable motor when not encumbered by Nissan's HORRIBLE manifolds.

I'd say a V8 Pathfinder with an AiRaid MXP intake, Long Tubes headers, decent exhaust and UpRev tuning would be a fair straight line performance match to the SS. That would put them at approximately the same horsepower, with an edge to the Pathfinder in torque and with a 5-speed vs the 4-speed in the SS. The SS does have 4:10 gearing, which is hard to overcome but pays a penalty in fuel economy.

A big factor for me would be the transmission. The Titan and the Volvo's are 5-speed autos, any time I drive a 4-speed I never forget that its missing a gear and notice every shift. Conversely every time I drive a 6-speed I note how much of a difference it makes over a 5-speed. With all the new vehicles going with 6-9 speed auto's I don't think I'd consider anything with a 4-speed.

Thanks for the offer to look at vehicles, Josh. If I find something worth driving 14 hours round trip to pick up having a pre-inspection would be awesome. I am hoping to find something more local (GTA?).

I agree the 5 speed is nice. The one 5.6L pathy I drove was great in that regard. I grew up on 3 speed autos and have had experience with 6 different 4 speed autos (4 GM 2 Nissan). I am comfortable with the 4 speed auto - I agree the more the merrier, but I am ok with the 4 since the towing I would do won't be that often to make a 5+ gear trans a requirement. It's not like it gets me better economy than the Envoy.

I don't know if the pathy could match the SS in performance, perhaps possible, wouldn't match the handling, but that angle is at best a nice to have anyway. The SS is also known for having a weak trans despite it being an upgraded version of the regular trailblazer trans - seems to tow ok but abuse/mods over power it (though there are some upgrades such as vette servos that can help). As much as I think it'd be cool to have the SS the purchase price is harder to justify. It'd be a min $5k? more than a pathy (for similar miles) and likley more again over an envoy and more again over a saab 9-7x. I actually like the denali styling best. It kills me that any manufacturer thinks plastic wood grain is a premium appearance item though.

When it comes down to it I don't want to spend the time and effort to modify stock parts to the extent the pathfinder needs in the exhaust manifold area. If it was a simple swap - in and out for $500, well ok maybe, but paying others upward of $2k and having tunes etc. is too much to stomach. I simply don't have the time to do it myself. I wish I did.