Nissan MR20DE Engine Specs
Nissan
Nissan MR20DE is a 2.0L (1997 cc) petrol engine with 131-148 HP, 191-200 Nm, 10.2:1 compression ratio. Fuel consumption: 6.9-9.5L/100km. Typical service life: 250,000+ km.
Description
The MR20DE is a 2.0-liter four-cylinder from Nissan's MR family, and it's the sort of engine most people drive for years without ever really thinking about it. It turned up in early 2005 to take over from the older QR20DE and ended up in a surprisingly wide bunch of cars: the Serena and Bluebird Sylphy in Japan, the Qashqai and X-Trail in Europe, the Sentra in North America and the Teana in Asia. Renault and Samsung used it too, badged as the M4R in cars like the Mégane, Fluence and Laguna, and in Brazil a flex-fuel version went into the Tiida and Livina.
Design-wise there's nothing exotic. Aluminum block with thin cast-iron liners, an aluminum DOHC head, four valves per cylinder and a silent chain instead of a belt. Nissan added continuously variable valve timing to help low-rpm torque and keep emissions in check. Bore and stroke are 84.0 x 90.1 mm - a fairly long-stroke layout - so you end up with 1,997 cc and a compression ratio of roughly 10:1. Like its bigger VQ cousin, it uses shim-type valve lifters instead of hydraulic ones, so clearance is something a workshop checks now and then rather than something the engine adjusts by itself.
Output is modest: between 131 and 148 hp depending on the market and tune, with torque of roughly 190–200 Nm. The most common 147 PS version makes about 145 hp. Nobody is going to call it exciting. What it does well is pull smoothly from low revs and stay quiet on the motorway, especially in the Qashqai and Sentra.
Reliability is decent rather than legendary. The usual complaints are a chain that rattles on cold starts once the car gets older, carbon building up in the throttle body, and some oil use at high mileage. Most of that is cheap to catch early. Skip a few oil changes, though, and the variable timing solenoid starts to complain. The sump only takes about 3.8 liters, so changing the oil a little more often than the book says is cheap insurance.
If you're looking at a used one, listen to it cold. A short rattle that disappears after a few seconds is common; one that sticks around means the chain and guides are due. Check the service history for regular oil changes and ask whether the throttle body has ever been cleaned. Those two things tell you most of what you need to know.
It's a sensible, unspectacular engine, and for the cars it went into, that's more or less the whole point.