Nissan Elgrand E52 Lowdown

 As there is so little known about the E52 Elgrand models, I thought it best to come clean and admit to some of the issues that have come up, this post is all about cracks. One of the disappointing points when I first picked my car up from Southampton docks is that I noticed a crack in the dashboard.  Its very difficult to see these in pictures and so when I bought the car it was not noticeable from the pics sent by the garage in Japan. I have conducted a little bit of a survey and it seems that this is a common issue rather than just my car.  On one of the E52 Facebook groups when I asked about cracks, approx 50% of the replies said that they also have the same or similar cracks in there car.  Seems odd! Anyway, it seems that the plastics used in the dashboard are prone to cracking in the hot sun, so if you buy a good quality car from Japan there is a high chance of cracks as it would of been driven in the warm areas. (Buy one from the snowy cold region and you are likely to have rust

 After a few months of driving my Elgrand E52 the one thing that has bugged me whenever I am driving at night is the lack of real English AV control buttons.  I believe we all do the same in our Elgrands, buying the English vinyl stickers and applying them over the top of the Japanese text.  It doesn't look perfect but its very very cheap and now I can understand what button I need to press.  The downside is when driving at night the illumination of the buttons is now restricted by the sticker on top, making it impossible to read the text and making the button look like they have gibberish instead. Fortunately those clever people over at Xanavi can now produce an set of buttons with English text .  I have no idea how they do it, whether they are manufacturing them or using a 3D printer perhaps, but it is a brilliant solution. The end result is superb with fully lit buttons in English, the plastic is colour matched to the existing controls so they don't look odd as well.  (The