Boy, where do i begin...this is ugly. Started with strong fuel odors in my '94 Maxima with 110,000 miles. I see others with Nissan Axxess and Nissan Murano have posted similar problems.

My Maxima has/had a plastic shroud around the filler neck, presumably to protect it from road debris, rocks, etc..., blasting the filler neck. Unfortunately, the shroud traps fine dirt and moisture. This includes your winter road salt. When I removed the shroud, massive amounts of fine sand & dirt fell to the ground. When I cleaned out what was stuck up inside the rear quarter panel area, I swept up 3 full dustpans. It was close to 10lbs of crap.

The filler neck was badly rusted. The rear quarter panel was rusted badly. When I started to dismantle, I went to remove seatbelt bolt. I was shocked to find the entire area was behind filler neck and completely rusted out. The sheet metal twisted apart easily and would not have protected the left rear passenger in a 5 MPH collision. It would have just tore away.

Years ago my '86 Honda Prelude had a rusty filler neck. I removed it and went to buy the part, and was told there was a recall on it. It was considered a safety issue. When I asked Nissan a few months ago, there was no recall for this serious safety issue (on 2 issues: strong fuel odors and no seatbelt protection). I find that unacceptable, especially now that I can see the flawed design. Here are the pics of the damage:This one shows the big hole, and yes, that's daylight on the other side.this one is more of the same holesanother pice from the inside of wheel welllast of the inside rustokay, this is the remaining piece of sheet metal that seatbelt bolt attached to. i placed it on the seatbelt ratchet mechanism

and this is the piece of sheet metal/nut that held seatbelt, held at arm's length.

So to fix all this, we cut and welded a patch of sheet metal, then fiberglassed it a few times, on both the inside and outside. There were 2 big, different rust area. One was inside trunk, the other inside wheel-well/quarter panel, and that one was really hard to patch. The inside wheel well got fiberglassed plus some JB weld.

THEN, I primed the neck and painted it with 3 coats of rubberized asphalt (undercoating). I let it dry really good. I did this over 3 days to let everything dry between coats. We also sprayed the heck out of the inside wheel well area to make extra sure. I wanted to seal out fumes, and protect against future up-chuck from the road. AND I never replaced the shroud because the filler neck is coated with 3 coats of undercoating. Better yet, they should use a rhino-lining type product on it. I'll keep an eye on it and see how well it holds up. It will also get a regular rinse with every car wash.

Modified by canucklehead at 10:57 PM 3/31/2009
Modified by canucklehead at 11:01 PM 3/31/2009

same thing happen on my friends 93 sentra

I got a reply from Nissan Canada today. I give them credit for the quick reply..that's about it.

my car had a recall and the filler neck was replaced with a more corrosion resistant one, in 1997. they also treated the quarter panel area with some type of rust inhibitor (i wonder if they meant to say rust accelerator). amazing, because it never cured SFA. It's almost an admission that they're incompetent when they know the problem exists, recall it, and it's just as bad.

why not remove the shroud, cover the filler neck & inner wheel well/quarter panel area with a rhino-lining type of product, and tell owner's to routinely clean that area whenever they wash the car?