We Took A 375,000 Mile NYC Taxi To A Dealership For Inspection And The Repair Quote Was Astronomical: Partner Post

There’s a certain level of abuse some vehicles reach in their lives after which a trip to a dealership — whose techs will only fix a car the right way — just doesn’t make sense. Obviously, no one in their right mind would take a 375,000 mile ex-NYC Taxi they bought for just $800 to a Nissan dealer to get fixed. Of course that’s what we did.

Conceptually, this project with Copart is supposed to be a zero-to-hero story that demonstrates the many, many possibilities that exist if you broaden your project car search to include Copart. We probably ended up a little closer to zero than they originally bargained for when we optimistically picked the cab. We chose “hard” mode and it’s been a wild ride ever since. But this is a hero’s journey, after all, and you don’t become a hero if you don’t experience any adversity.

Oh, man, did we set ourselves up for adversity. We bought a sight-unseen cab that had been through the worst New York could throw at it, including salty winters and potholes big enough to swallow Bill DeBlasio whole. These vehicles have Nissan’s notoriously garbage CVT and the photos showed all sorts of potential problems.

What we did know was that it had a complete motor and transmission, and had been used within the last few months as a taxi. Otherwise, it was looking rough.

If you look past the body damage and squint at the windshield you’ll notice it has a biohazard sticker there to warn would-be buyers of biological hazards. Again, this was an $800 car.

From Gossin’s Rescue Garage To Capital Nissan

When we last checked in with the cab, our NV200 was being looked over by SWG. He did his valiant best to rescue the cab and got it running again, complete with tires and wheels, but ran into a massive oil leak that was going to take more than driveway wrenching to repair.

The plan was always to swing by a dealer, both to get some recall work done and to see what kind of hilarious estimate we’d get if we got it fixed at a real service center. With the crank bolt as immovable as Excalibur, it seemed like maybe the next stop should be the closest reasonable Nissan dealer. Of course, not just any Nissan dealer would do, as this is a crazy thing to roll into a shop.

SWG already had a good experience with Wilmington’s Capital Nissan so I called them to see if they were game. To my surprise, they were anxious to see what the van was like and asked us to ship it over. I even explained that we were not likely to do any work there, which didn’t phase them at all.

The Big Dropoff

As you’ll remember, SWG diagnosed a huge oil leak that seemed to stem from the front crankshaft pulley seal, although it was difficult to be sure what was actually happening without repeatedly refilling her with oil. A dealership, with a lift, should be able to remove the crankshaft pulley easily and diagnose the issue.

So off the Nissan went on the back of a tow truck to Capital Nissan. I called Ken, our friendly Service Advisor, and walked through the gameplan. The most basic thing we needed to do was to determine what’s going on with the oil leak, as, until that’s repaired, we can’t move forward. It was leaking that much. We’d also driven the cab… not at all, so determining that the Nissan’s transmission was in full working order would be helpful. There were a couple of open recalls as well so, sure, get those done.

In order to baseline our cab as be we could, I also asked for a full rundown of everything that they’d have to do in order to bring the cab back to life mechanically, along with the associated cost. For all that, we’d pay the minimum diagnostic check fee of $324.99.

Ken’s first concern upon getting the cab was getting it into the shop. Did we want to risk running it a bit? I said I’d rather not, being unaware of how much oil was still in the thing. Ken decided it wasn’t too heavy and so getting it wheeled into a service bay was probably the best course of action.

The Dealership Cracks The Case

Before even removing the crank case bolt or replacing the seal, by getting the NV200 on a lift, the techs at Capital Nissan were able to diagnose what they saw as the main cause of an oil leak. It seems that 375,000 miles of hard New York City life resulted in the big crack in the timing cover you see above. The timing cover, by the way, is what you pour the oil directly into on this engine, so it’s no wonder it flowed out onto the ground so quickly.

A Nissan dealer, of course, will only repair things by-the-book, and right off the bat the estimate for parts and labor to replace the whole case would be $2,192.14. Ouch. SWG was relieved to discover that even if he’d removed the bolt and swapped the seal it would still be Exxon Valdez when he restarted the cab. I was a little less comforted by the price.

It gets worse. The rack-and-pinion steering had cracked and separated from the subfame.

Replacing the steering system would be another $2,329.10 if done the official way. We’re already looking at about $4,500, or approximately six times the cost of the cab (or about twice what it cost to buy it and ship it around the East Coast).

It doesn’t end there. Ken and his colleague Cheryl explained the following also needed to be addressed:

• The driver front strut is bent and the front wheel is cambered into the fender.
• The tires are shot.
• The oil pan and CVT pan are both dented.
• Both lower control arms are shot.

• The subframe radiator support is broken
• The front tie-rods are bent
• Both front window regulators are inoperable
• The HVAC vents on the front instrument panel are inoperable
• It has no cats!

And that’s just the stuff that was diagnosed right away. A full estimate for all the work was $14,406.62, if they were to do it, which meant replacing anything broken with genuine Nissan parts.

Gulp.

It’s Always Darkest Before The Dawn

I’m not a wrench, so I had to defer to Jason and David as to the next steps. I communicated to Ken that I was suddenly more concerned than I was before about the drivability of the van and admitted that I was worried we might need to scrap the project.

Ken, to his eternal credit, didn’t want that to happen. “Nooooooooo! It was gonna be so cool!” he argued.

I shared the report with David and Jason, wondering what they’d think. Neither of them seemed that bothered. It’s an NYC Taxi that’s been driven the equivalent of 15 trips around the world almost solely within Manhattan and Brooklyn. Of course it has issues! The folks at Capital Nissan weren’t giving up either. They performed the first recall job (the second one would have to wait until we replaced the exhaust) and even had a tech check out the CVT. Certainly, if the engine works and the transmission works, everything else is fixable.

For the first time in this project, we had a bit of luck. The transmission seemed to be in working order, though Ken admitted they didn’t get it up to highway speeds. Perhaps to encourage us further, they cut us a break on the diagnostic fee, charging us a minimal amount for the labor to check everything out. So, yeah, if you’re in North Carolina and want a Nissan, go check out Capital Nissan and tell them we sent you. Good folks.

After paying for the car, the next step was to have it shipped to Chapel Hill, where David would meet it with a bag of tools, a box of parts, and a song in his heart. Nothing could go wrong from here on out.

Well, that’s wrong. One more big thing could go wrong. And did.