Elgrand E52 Buyers Guide

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 them to use an aftermarket fluid.

Get a report

Head over to CarVX and get a report on the car.  It costs around £20 for the report and will highlight if the car has been written off in Japan, whether the mileage seems genuine, and also show the auctions that it has been through in Japan.  For example, if you are buying a Grade 4B E52 then the CarVX report might show that it was sold in Japan as a Grade 3C and that should start ringing some alarm bells that the car is not genuine.

Rust & Undersealing

Most imported Japanese cars are immaculate underneath and rust is not normally an issue.  Do take a look though as there are a handful of cars that go through the auctions at cheap prices with rust.  They often come from the snowy regions in Japan, so you might want to avoid those if that is the case.

Recommendation from most JDM groups and sites is to get your Japanese import undersealed.  This is a process of using a wax based liquid and spraying that to the underside of the car.  It will help to protect it against the UK weather and the salt that we use on our roads.  A lot of dealers will include an underseal as part of their sales process.

Audio / Visual Equipment

A few E52s have a double DIN stereo that is mounted in the top screen area.  They normally have a cubby hole below the screen which shows that it has the basic AV equipment.  This could be an easy option to convert to English though as it should be a swap of the stereo for a UK double DIN unit.

E52s with the full Nissan AV setup have a touchscreen at the top, buttons below that for SatNav, bluetooth, etc and then another selection of buttons below the aircon that control the radio/dvd.  These systems can be converted to English using a firmware/CD update process and some dealers are doing this as part of the sale.  It costs £100-200 I believe and it might be worth pushing a dealer to do it, it doesn't convert some elements though such as the SatNav.  Commonly the Japanese buttons get stickers put on them to convert them to English.

There is a full conversion that a company in Estonia supply along with 3D printed English control buttons, its about £800-1000 for the setup so if you look at an E52 with this then bear that in mind for the price.

Some of the cars also have Bose stereos with a subwoofer, it should say "BOSE" on the front door speakers.  If the seller says it has this but it doesn't have that writing on it, you could check in the boot under the floor, take out the polystyrene and you should find the subwoofer and amplifier in that area.

If the car has the AV TV monitor on the roof then check for the remote control.  If its missing then it will cost ~£100 to replace.

Dashboard + MPH Conversion

First thing to clear up, if you are looking at a 2010-2014 car the very small digital screen in the centre of the dials is in Japanese and cannot be converted to English.  There are no special menus or anything, and nobody offers a conversion.  (The later facelifted model has a bigger screen in the dash and I am not sure if that is restricted as well.)

For the MPH conversion some E52s will have the Lockwood dials installed, which is a new dial fascia so that the car has not been modified mechanically.  The needle still points where it always has, but it now has an MPH scale to point at rather than KMH.  The odometer will continue to count in KMs though.

I have seen a few cars where a sticker has been placed onto the plastic cover that shows the MPH, which doesn't look very professional, watch these.  The last option is that a conversion chip is installed and the speedometer changes to MPH, and the dealer then puts a black sticker over the K (in KMH).  Only downside of this is that the odometer changes to Miles, but only from that point.  When you come to sell you may have to explain to the next owner that it has 50000 KMs and you have added 10000 miles, hence the odometer shows 60000.

Cracks

A common issue in the E52 is cracks in the top part of the dashboard under the windscreen.  Many of them have these cracks and at present nobody has found a way to fix them.  Some people have bought a cover (a dashboard mat) which isn't ideal but is at least a way to try and protect it.  You may have to factor this into your viewing and decide how many cracks is too many for you to live with.

Rear wiper

Take a look at the rear window and check if it has a rear wiper or not!  Japanese drivers remove them and install a blanking cover, which I believe is about making the car look cool(!).  I had to install a rear wiper on mine as it is a pain for us here in the rainy UK.  You can add one if yours doesn't have it, probably around £80-150

Power Steering Leak

It could be worth checking around the power steering pump for leaking fluid.  Seems to be a common issue that the seals in the pumps break down and then the fluid leaks out.  You can buy new seals on eBay and if you are buying from a dealer then get them to get it fixed before you buy.  If its another problem with the pump then a new one (refurbished likely) is around £600.

Two keys

If you buy from a dealer then make sure the car has two keys, and if not get them to sort it out.  Depending on the key your E52 has and where you are located it can be time consuming to get a spare key, likely to cost £100-200 for the key and coding/cutting.

Flare

On the left hand side of the passenger footwell there is a mounting for a flare.  Yes I know! A real flare which seems to be standard in Japanese cars.  If your car still has it then get it taken out and disposed of.

Electrics

Some of these E52s (like my own) have a huge amount of electrics, so check them over and make sure things work as you expect.  If it has the 360 camera system them make sure when you reverse that all the cameras work as expected.  Check the electric mirrors work and they fold when you press the button (and no they don't fold in automatically when you lock the car).  Check the heated seats, the electric boot, the electric doors, the electric seats in the front and the rear folding electric seats.

CATS

The E51 models were plagued with issues with their catalytic convertors breaking down and causing the engine to blow up.  This hasn't been seen on the E52s and so the decoring of CATs isn't a necessity, more a personal choice.  Beware of a dealer who says they need to be decored or is trying to charge you an extra fee to do this.

Modifications

The E52 is like any other JDM car that arrives in the UK, they can sometimes have a random set of custom modifications that the Japanese owner has made.  I would suggest you check them carefully to know both that you are happy with the it and that it works as expected, as parts to repair a non-Nissan modification could be challenging.   Some examples:

• Some of the cars arriving have suspension that can be raised/lowered using controls by the steering wheel, so make sure its working as expected.
• LEDs in the E52 have been replaced with a different colour.  Check the car in a tunnel or undercover if you want to make sure you are happy with whatever colour you get. (Mine is pink/purple which I don't mind but others might not like it)
• Switches by the drivers seat for extra lights (DRL's on the front, LEDs in footwells, rear fogs, under car lights, etc).
• USB sockets added in places as the E52 didn't have that many of these from the factory.

Facelift on an early E52

A few E52s have been seen that are the first models (2010-2014) but with the newer facelift front bumper/grill.  I really would recommend you get that report (above) to check that they were not repaired and updated with the new front, rather than the Japanese owner spending lots of money to make it look newer.

Colour

Most E52s are white or black.  There are silver and purple ones knocking about although they aren't that popular and you might find that out when you want to sell it.  On the older E51 model there was a special G30 paint work that is a colour that changes depending on the angle you view it.  It goes from green to purple to black, and does simply look very impressive.  I believe that Nissan did not offer the E52 in this kind of colour but you never know, there could of been a special edition with it.  The warning is that this colour is extremely expensive to repair if you scratch it or dent the car.  The paint itself costs many times more than normal car colours and could make it prohibitive to put right. 

Fake Nonsense

Beware of the fake information that some of the dealers/sellers write, its can be that they don't understand and not just that they are trying to deceive you.  Some commons items you may see:

• "Same engine as the 350Z" - The 3.5 V6 has the same basic engine as the E52, but the 2.5 E52 has nothing like the 350Z.
• 2.5 V6 - The 2.5 engine is a 4 cylinder, not a V6.
• Nismo E52 - There isn't a Nismo E52, there are Nismo options that can be applied such as alloy wheels and extra bodykit items.  There is an Autech Rider High Performance which is the same as the normal Autech Rider but with an extra 20hp and different suspension, but not a Nismo (or Impul).
• Infinity versions - These are typically just changes to the bodykit on the cars and normally aftermarket by the Japanese owners.