Nissan Elgrand E52 Lowdown

Interest is E52 ownership seems to be growing here in the UK and I often comment on Facebook posts offering my thoughts on what to look for when seeing one of these fabulous cars.  Hopefully the following tips will be useful if you are looking at them. CVT Lets start with the item everyone talks about and E51 owners love to complain about.  The CVT gearbox in the E52 needs maintaining to ensure it has a long life ahead of it.  General consensus is to replace the CVT fluid in the gearbox every 60000 kms and to only use Nissan NS3 fluid.  Some cars seem to have a sticker under the bonnet that details the last CVT fluid change details, so check for that.  If there isn't anything then you might have to assume it needs doing.  Its quite an expensive job to do as the NS3 fluid is around £100 per 5 litres and the gearbox takes over 10 litres! If you get the dealer to complete the work then ask them to give you the empty NS3 containers or see the receipts from Nissan.  You don't want t

I have been driving my Elgrand for over a year now and over that time I have become increasingly more surprised that there hasn't been an E52 camper van developed yet. The E51 gang are always commenting (complaining..) that the E52 is much smaller (which isn't true if you go and check my earlier size comparison post) and wouldn't make a good camper.  The truth of it is that the E52 has a slightly lower roofline (5-10cm), the rear seats have less height as the car floor slopes slightly and the other elements are similar/bigger than the E51.  That aside, have you seen some of the camper vans out there?  Some of them are tiny in comparison to the mighty E52.  The Nissan Serena, Citroen Berlingo, Fiat Doblo, even the VW Caddy have conversions and avid fans. Now, the key to a camper conversion seems to be getting the right roof height, and that essentially comes down to the availability of pop top roofs.  Having looked at a converted E51, it was clear that without a pop roof the

I have been wanting to clean the engine bay in my E52 for a while now, its a special car so why not make what's under the bonnet look its best.  I removed the air box and the cover from the air filter, and then to my horror noticed that there was a split in the air ducting. Checking on my favourite part diagram site I located the part number which is 16576-1AA1A.  Seems that the part is common to Murano's as well, but I found an aftermarket one on Ali Express for under £20, and so ordered that.  If you need one its here <Air Duct> : Admittedly it did take 2 weeks to arrive, but looked pretty much identical to the old one.  To replace the air duct if you have the same issue, you need to use pliers to move the spring clip from the bottom hose. Then loosen the metal collars using the two screw points highlighted here. Getting the old one off was easy, and a quick comparison picture for you to see how they look.  Top is the old one. The new air duct was a bit tighter getting