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The SMOD (strawberry milkshake of death) problem was limited to automatic vehicles which have a trans cooler loop in the radiator. The aluminum trans cooler loop tubing welds would either corrode or fail from metal fatigue, allowing the transmission fluid to mix with the coolant, ultimately requiring service or replacement of the transmission. This was fixed permanently with a revision to the radiator in 2009. Manual transmission vehicles never had the transmission cooler loop in the radiator, so the particular vehicle you are looking at is immune to the problem. If you do pick up an automatic truck, you can either bypass the transmission cooler and rely on the external trans cooler that the auto trucks also have, or you can replace the radiator with a high quality aftermarket unit (Koyo, etc.) which will have a brass cooler loop which solves the problem and keeps the OEM trans cooler functionality intact. I have an 09 Xterra Off-Road Package and love basically everything about it.
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