Frontier Bed Crack

[andy.and.beyond]

So I was poking around under my truck a few weeks ago and notice my passenger side front bed mount to the chassis is crack. I took it to the Nissan dealer where i bought it since i have an extended 100K bumper to bumper warranty and was told this is not included in the extended warranty. The guy from the body shop talked as if he has seen this before and it happens simply from driving on dirt roads. I called the Nissan 800 number and received the same response. My frontier is a 2016 SV 4x4 with 56K on it, I bought it at 35k and the Camper shell I built has been on it for about the last year and about 10K miles. I don't do any crazy rock crawling or anything just driving on dirt roads to get to hiking trail heads or for a camping spot.

my 2 cents is this is a design flaw, the other 3 mounting points of the truck are perfectly fine and at least twice as thick as this one.

Something else worth noting when i installed my camper I noticed a diving board feeling when driving on the highway, I've asked a few other on instagram who had a GFC RTT and a hard shell camper and they reported feeling the same thing. Curious if anyone else has noticed this and if this mount has failed on your rig.

Also just trying to raise awareness of this issue with the frontier and save someone else a headache. I'm interested in hearing if anyone else with a camper, RTT, or topper has this issue or doesn't. Seems it might be likely to happen of you drive on dirt roads with a lot of extra weight in the bed.

 

[broncobowsher]

The truck has been on the market for 15 years now. Don't see beds falling off like Toyota frames rusting in half.
Cracks happen all the time in all sorts of materials. Doesn't mean they have failed. Just means there is a crack. If there is a failure, it will probably be at the crack, but there is still a lot of metal holding everything together. I have cracks in various pieces of wood holding my house up, the drywall, and the concrete it is sitting on. Service trucks always have cracks in the bed. It might panic you, but in the real world it is pretty common.

 

[andy.and.beyond]

The truck has been on the market for 15 years now. Don't see beds falling off like Toyota frames rusting in half.
Cracks happen all the time in all sorts of materials. Doesn't mean they have failed. Just means there is a crack. If there is a failure, it will probably be at the crack, but there is still a lot of metal holding everything together. I have cracks in various pieces of wood holding my house up, the drywall, and the concrete it is sitting on. Service trucks always have cracks in the bed. It might panic you, but in the real world it is pretty common.

I'm confident the bed won't fall off, considering i talked to a guy that messed up his frontier rock crawling and completely shredded the same mount and the other 3 are perfectly fine. Steel doesn't crack because it's settling like a house, its usually when when the stress is too high or fatigue . So we can agree to disagree on that part.

 

[dhmachine86]

Interesting. I'll have to check mine for cracks.

I do have some cracking at the ends where the tailgate latches, it looks like from a bit of bed side spreading. Right now its just in the paint, but its because there's flexing/separation. I'll get photos later.

 

[Deleted member 9101]

Weld the crack and beef up the mount.

 

[andy.and.beyond]

Interesting. I'll have to check mine for cracks.

I do have some cracking at the ends where the tailgate latches, it looks like from a bit of bed side spreading. Right now its just in the paint, but its because there's flexing/separation. I'll get photos later.

I think I have noticed the same ones on my tailgate but isn't not as surprising? that's why Tacos need bed stiffeners( i think). I've actually sent you some messages on Instagram but i must fall in the easily missed in box. I'm really interested to hear how your frontier has fared with the habitat on there.

Weld the crack and beef up the mount.

I finally got around to doing that. i'll post some photos. I just thought there wasn't much interest do to lack of comments on my post.

 

[andy.and.beyond]

Took some time off work and spent my 4th of july week repairing the crack in 100 degree temps. i haven't taken it on a trip yet but a quick test drive on the highway tells me it's better than new. No more diving board feeling on the highway and even seems like reduced road noise. It's not my best looking work but the work space isn't ideal and all the welding had to be done using a mirror (my first time doing that, not my idea of a good time)

1 - one surprise I wasn't happy with was finding more cracks hidden under the nut plate and retainer. This makes me wonder how many beds are cracked and it's just not bad enough to see yet.
2 & 3 - I drilled out the ends of the cracks, i ground out the cracks some with a die grinder but didn't really have the right tool for the job so i didn't get to prep them like I wanted, TIG brazed the cracks up with, and ground "flush"(not really any room to have a clamp in there and weld at the same time)
4 & 5 - just some shots of the piece of 3" channel i stuffed in there. i had to notch the end that goes into the rail to clear some seam that was inside there. Also machined some chamfers to clear the bend radius in the rail.
6 - just showing the fit prior to welding
7 - all welded up, I opt'ed not to keep the massive over size hole in my channel that Nissan has here and keep a tight fitting hole in my channel. i slapped some paint on it after welding and prepainted some of the areas i knew I wouldn't be able to reach after welding and just hoped welding wouldn't burn off all the paint since that was the best i could do. i shouldn't have too many issues with rust out here in AZ though.

 

[Deleted member 9101]

I finally got around to doing that. i'll post some photos. I just thought there wasn't much interest do to lack of comments on my post.

I feel the same way when I post stuff about my F150...lol.

 

[andy.and.beyond]

I feel the same way when I post stuff about my F150...lol.

hahaha I guess people are only interested in Tacos huh?

 

[Deleted member 9101]

hahaha I guess people are only interested in Tacos huh?

And Landcruisers...haha.