CarComplaints.com Notes: The 2005 Nissan Altima has two fairly significant problems with the floor pan rusting through & motor mounts breaking.
Altima owners report that up to a basketball-size hole develops under the floor mats where the floor pan metal rusts through. Average repair cost is over $1,000.
The broken motor mounts are less of a problem - they break at ~75,000 miles average & it's $400 to fix. Still, motor mounts should not break!
Oil was leaking into, spark-plugs tunnels. I thought it would be easy. Just replace spark plug seals, but no. You have to buy the hole piece, the gasket for the spark plug tunnels is build in the valve cover.
The original valve covers are defective and truly a bad design. This is common on the 3.5 v/6 engines from 2002-2006. Once the leaking starts around the spark plug seals it can seep into the engine down through the plugs. The burning oil smell is awful coming into the cockpit. There is a sparkplug seal kit but it does not work on the original valve covers, only on the replacement of new design. All Nissans engineers had to do is have a removable plate where the seals are located so they can be replaced but instead they deteriorate rendering them useless and the owner has to replace the whole valve cover (left & right). I'm not sure if this was intentional or just another engineering blunder but it's costing the owners an unwarranted expense.
- quicksilva05,
Shelby, NC, US
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Oil was leaking into, spark-plugs tunnels. I thought it would be easy. Just replace spark plug seals, but no. You have to buy the hole piece, the gasket for the spark plug tunnels is build in the valve cover.
- killerwood, Guntersville, AL, US