I know what the lower ratings are from, but it's interesting that the xterra doesn't have the lower ratings. I would have expected that to be consistent, I'm surprised it isn't. Heavier duty clutch? Anyways, I'd rather murder a clutch than murder a transmission...
Still, seems impossible to find them in manual, unfortunately. Almost all that I see are automatic. There was an issue with the transmission cooling fluid mixing with the transmission fluid in 05-09 models that was easy to fix if you caught it, but killed the transmission if you didn't. Manual also avoids that issue. "strawberry milkshake of death". Other than that, they seem like solid, reliable vehicles.
As for the F150:
The spark plug breaking was only on the larger V8's. The 4.2L didn't have that issue, as far as I can tell. But that was 04-08. The spark plug spitting was the gen before that, 97-03(04 heritage). They went from too few threads, to too many threads + two-piece spark plug.
The reliability across the board for the 04-08 years, not great--but they're greatly brought down by the bigger engines, as I've said, which almost everyone bought if they weren't getting a fleet vehicle. The old pushrod 4.2, though, is known to be extremely reliable. Simple, low HP, but easy to work on, cheap to maintain, and reliable.
Just, gutless, and not really a great daily driver in any metric. Really would prefer an xterra to get some back doors and have the higher HP.
