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Brand new Nissan Note Xe - Idler bolt sheared off - JohnnyM

Hello all...

Further to previous post: while wife was on motorway last week with brand new Nissan Note xe with just 230km on clock, all warning lights came on. Pulled over and then went to off ramp where car juddered before she stopped. Nissan informs us that fan belt had come off pulley it runs on because one of the bolts that holds an idler pulley in place sheared off, resulting in fan belt coming off pulley. Sounds pretty bad for a brand new car and also makes you wonder if it's a systematic production issue.

Brand new Nissan Note Xe - Idler bolt sheared off - SLO76
Cars are hugely complex pieces of machinery, it's sadly not possible to eliminate the possibility of any manufacturing defects from occurring. This engine has proven reliable to date, better than the Renault units in other Nissan models. This is more likely down to simple human error during assembly than any design defect.
Brand new Nissan Note Xe - Idler bolt sheared off - Railroad.

And that's why you have a manufacturer's warranty.

Brand new Nissan Note Xe - Idler bolt sheared off - focussed

Must be a record - 230 km before failure - unless of course you know of a lower mileage failure?

Brand new Nissan Note Xe - Idler bolt sheared off - JohnnyM

I reckon 230km must be. Would love to know how it actually happened - faulty bolt or whatever.

Brand new Nissan Note Xe - Idler bolt sheared off - galileo

These days I'm sure all mass-production manufacturers tighten bolts with production line tools that are regularly calibrated to the correct torque setting. (That is the how I've seen it done at half a dozen engine assembly plants)

A sheared bolt was either defective or someone has manually given it an extra tweak for some reason.

Brand new Nissan Note Xe - Idler bolt sheared off - focussed

There was a recent case where bolts and nuts marked as10.9 were found to be not even of 8.8 tensile.

A HIAB mounting plate collapsed and killed a man because the bolts pulled through and stripped the theads out of the nuts.

They were eventually traced back to a chinese supplier/manufacturer.

(Nothing to do with the HIAB, it was the way it was installed)

Brand new Nissan Note Xe - Idler bolt sheared off - Railroad.

I once attended a Rover 214 with a head gasket gone with 96 miles on the clock. It belonged to a rental company and a bloke had hired to to drive from Portsmouth to Blackburn. He got as far as Winchester when it overheated and stopped.