Hey, my name is Miodrag and I'm new to the forums. I'm hoping this is a great resource for taking great care of my 2000 X-terra. My dad bought it new and drove it to about 57k miles. I needed a car and bought it from him and it's been good to me for 2+ years. I've always been a truck guy and this one is cool and tough. Great truck.

Recently I've noticed a rattling coming from underneath the truck. I don't hear it when I'm driving but only when it's idling. It almost sounds like something is loose but it's hard to tell what part of the truck it's coming from. I don't want to get fleeced by a mechanic or Nissan dealer so I was hoping some forum member would be familiar with what this could be so I can get it repaired (if it's something that is not easily fixed by me) at a reasonable price. Maybe it's something that others have noticed with their own X-terra.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I had the same problem, found it was the heat shield for the headers and part of the muffler. Mine where so bad the fell off with little effort.

heat shield. Welcome to the forums!

X3 on the heat shields. And it's not just an Xterra thing... 2 of my hondas did the same thing. It's a common annoyance as the vehicle gets some miles on it. Nothing major.

I appreciate the help. Any guess-timate on what I would expect to pay in parts & labor? I'm assuming I could save significantly by skipping the dealer. Thanks much for the quick/definitive feedback.

welcome th the club!

you cold always secure or take it off yourself, would be the cheapest route
always better to work on your own rig, you learn alot and save tons of moola

x2

Welcome aboard!

Thanks for all the help and the welcome messages. Now here comes my stupid question: where are the heat shields located?

The heat shields are just small sheets of aluminum that are placed along the exhaust system to shield the heat from things like hoses, wiring, and the body. I haven't looked at the xterras but some of them are actually 2 sheets of aluminum with some type of insulation sandwiched between them. I don't know what causes the rattle. It could be loose mounts or the insulation coming out and the aluminum sheets rattling together. You can get away with removing them altogether but I do not recommend the taking off the ones around your catalytic converter.

Just get underneath and look all along the length of your exhaust and see if you can see where these shields might be vibrating against the muffler. Let it idle and get out and listen closely to see where the sound is originating from so you can figure out which shield it is. And just for safety's sake... don't get under your X while it's idling.

From what I've seen, most of the time the shield will crack at one of the mounting points, and start flapping around. Sometimes I'm able to just bend them with a hammer or prybar, into a slightly different position and make the rattle stop. Or you can just rip them off, or try to fix whatever broke.

all i did was have my wife tap on the skinny while i was under the X, then the ones that were rattling i took them off... i ended up removing all but the ones in the engine bay... LOL

Sounds about right, a little extra floor heat for your feet never hurt anyone.

i didnt feel a diffrence in heat.....

Well that's too bad. But I suppose, technically, that's good. I always enjoy the heated floors in my chevy stepside. The floors get pretty hot in that truck. Snow always falls in and lands on my floorboard, you wouldn't believe how fast it evaporates.

Excellent. Thanks to all members for their help. I'll report back when I have the time to check it out. Thanks again,

good luck!