Nissan MR18DE

The 1.8 of Nissan's MR family — between the MR16DDT and the MR20 — in the Versa and the Cube.

It shares the family's timing chain, and the family's chain is the thing to listen for. The guides and tensioner wear, producing a rattle at start-up that settles as oil pressure comes up, and the same design is behind the noise on every MR and HR engine here. A rattling MR is a chain job rather than ordinary noise for an old engine — it is chain-driven specifically so that it would not need one at mileage, and at mileage it does.

The bigger complaint on these cars is usually not the engine. Both were sold almost exclusively with Nissan's continuously variable transmission, and a great deal of what is written about Versa and Cube reliability describes that rather than the MR18. Establish which side of the bellhousing the fault is on before quoting anything.

Beyond the chain it is a plain port-injected four with no direct injection and therefore no intake-valve carbon: a running fault here is ignition, fuel or a vacuum leak, and the diagnosis is the straightforward one.