Ok so this is my one Eureka moment!
I feel like a ******* for not looking into it further before but....This vehicle has been looked at by 2 different body shops and three dealers - one of which knew how to resolve it.
I believe there was an 08kingcab owner that went to the effort of welding up the striker plate and redrilling it to suit.... I hope he didn't fall for the same problem that I saw.
Ok...when I first noticed that my passenger door was banging away like it wasn't closed properly I took it to the dealer on the 10k service and I was told point blank " My mechanics dont adjust doors because they will just **** it up". So I took it to the local body shop where they told me to take it straight back to Nissan because the door rubbers were not right and needed to be replaced because they weren't providing enough compression to hold the door firmly.
Jack of it all I switched the striker plates from passenger to driver side and vice versa. It was then that I noticed the nuts in the B pillar were cockeyed and looked like this ( re-enactment )
Edit...you can see by the paint mark where they were...certainly not straight.
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I then pointed this out to a different dealer on the 20k service. His mechanic was knowledgeable enough to know that the striker could be adjusted and resolved the movement and the sound of the door over even slight bumps. But the door now appeared, and continues to be out of line with the rest of the panels. So the dealer put in a warranty claim....this is where the real fun begins.
Nissan tell me to take it back to the original dealer that I bought it from as it is their responsibility to adjust and correct imperfections before delivery. So I do. They're reply was " Why are you here?" before a few frustrated calls to the Nissan HQ and sending me down to their body shop where the basher came up with the solution of pulling in the back door to suit the line of the front because he too believed the nuts to be spot welded in place. I gave up about there when phone calls were not returned and it all seemed too hard.
Until Tonight!
I found that the nuts inside the B pillar are welded to a plate and are not in fact spot welded to the B pillar itself.
To adjust the striker plate just break the nuts away from the paint that holds them in place.
and adjust them to suit.
Be warned though! the countersunk screws are held in place with a form of loctite so to remove them without stripping the heads you will need
1. Impact driver or
2. Heat gun to warm the screws and soften the loctite or
3. a Gorrilla with a death grip and 100t of down force.
I now suspect that the door hinges are held in place by the same method and I should be able to pull the door back into line with the rest of the panels....But its dark out there now and I cant be arsed finding out till tommorow.
Hope that helps.
