Cracked Rear Subframe Cradle

[nissan family]

Hi guys and girls, I just recently bought a m35 Stagea and have found out that they may look nice but seem to b full of factory faults and bad design. Anyway my issue is the rear cradle is snapped on both sides, does anyone know if it's ok to still drive it like this until I source a replacement or should I just park it up in the garage until I get it fixed?

[scotty nm35]

Hey Chris, welcome to Stagea ownership.

The cracked rear subframe is not what I would call a common fault, I have only seen one cracked subframe out of the many Stageas I have worked on in Melbourne, although it seems to be more common in Sydney for some reason, possibly rougher roads or something. Does your car have Hicas rear steering? These Hicas cars will put more load on the subframe by design, especially if the car has been lowered.

It isn't too hard to weld and repair the cracks, although if the reason for the failure isn't repaired first, the subframe will just fail again in the same spot. I suspect it may be due to worn cradle bushes or similar. I do have two non Hicas subframes here, but converting to non-Hicas has it's own issues.

Where are you located? It would be good to get it on the hoist and have a look around for worn bushes, and see how bad the cracks are. It won't fall apart or leave you stranded as both sections are still bolted to the floor pan, but I would be looking to repair it soon before the cracks propagate further.

Did you buy the car from a car yard? If so it may be under warranty. If you bought it privately you probably just found the reason the previous owner got rid of the car. This is why I refuse to buy a car without checking it out on a hoist first.