Detailed at Nismo Omori Factory!

 So the rule is essentially that, if a Nissan, Nismo Omori Factory will work on your car.  So of course, I was curious to see if the guy who details the Nismo CRS vehicles could also work on the Elgrand.  After some arm twisting, the answer came back YES!

After I dropped off the Elgrand I looked back and saw them...

Ochiai-san knows that I am very, very particular. I am sure he was giving Sawanobori-san some warnings as to where I would be checking...

Amazingly, the work only took a couple of days.  Meanwhile Ochiai-san had sent me these photos:

Here is Sawanobori-san claying the vehicle. Hoping that is a soft bristle brush...

No more water spots on the moonroof glass!

Buffed out those scratches in the turn signal from that small encounter with a tree...

All those water spots gone! And the chrome is super clear!

Some stains from the seats gone too!

Final wipe down? So cool this is indoors at NISMO.

Amazing, looks brand new! And no weird stains around the Elgrand letters eithers!

And then when I went to go pick the Elgrand up a few days later, on Sunday...

There she is, as I look through the windows in the Nismo showroom into the work area

Yep, parked next to two R34 GT-Rs... not sure the Elgrand is even worth what a set of wheels for the GT-Rs costs...

Ochiai-san moved it up front to get it ready for me to drive out and home...

But not before showing me that they even cleaned under the hood.

And polished the headlights and the chrome...

So now I HAVE to park the Elgrand indoors. Which is a tight fit...

Maybe about 10cm? But yes the garage door closes!

Overall, very very happy with how the Elgrand turned out.  Not so sure about the quality of the ceramic coating - the one that detailers in Japan love to use - Echelon, appears to be hydrophilic and I am not sure that is what I want. But so long it is ceramic based, I can layer other ceramic coatings on top I think...

So ok now that she is professionally cleaned up, what next? Well, how VIP can I get? Depends on my definition of VIP... stay tuned...

Bi-Color LED Foglights!

 So after the taillamp debacle, I decided to think about what other bulbs I might want to swap out for LEDs.  Then I discovered, thanks to this video by LED specialist JUNACK, that Valenti has this bi-color LED bulb specifically for foglamps - and the LED bulb to replace the OEM H8 bulb used in the Elgrand was available. So I immediately placed an order...

So installation was pretty easy actually. Just have to remove one press-in clip and unscrew three T20 screws and the bottom of the fender liner can be folded out, giving you access to the rear of the fog lamp assembly.

In any case, I was glad I had the proper tools (this fantastic compact socket set from Koken):

Quarter inch socket, and of course all made in Japan

So here is how it looked inside (Note- the left side was much easier, on the driver's side the windshield washer fluid bottle causes very limited clearance to access the bulb):

And a comparison of the OEM bulb and the Valenti bulb:

Valenti is longer, but fits into the OEM housing... just barely though!

Oh and actually the OEM bulbs were actually not that bad.

LED headlights only - but with the halo LEDs in the fog lamps:

And then with the foglights on:

So here is how it looks with just the standard LED headlights:

With ONLY the OEM foglights on:

And then with the LED headlights and OEM (incandescent) fog lights:

So although in daylight, here is how the OEM bulb looked:

Clearly, much whiter with the LED bulb!

And then you turn on/off 3 times, and then the LED switches to this yellow tint!

I think yellow foglights are better in fog, right?

So I think I will normally drive around with just the headlights, and use the white foglights when on dark roads without much lighting. And then use yellow if I ever get caught in crazy rain or convince the family to go on a ski trip up north during the snow season.

I will have to recheck, at night, how clean the fog lights show on the road below the LED headlights, like I did with the OEM fogs. Hopefully it does matter and the lens still can work perfectly. Stay tuned...

Tail lamp burnt out? Bad bulb? Replacing with LEDs... (Modernization?)

 So I recently noticed that at night when the lights were on, the left rear tail section (linked to the parking setting) would occasionally be not lit up - suggesting a bad bulb or bad connection (punching it would help sometimes).

When punching on it started to not have an effect, and although this area is not brake or safety-related, the unbalance at night bothered me, so hence I decided to replace the bulb.

So first, I had to take apart the rear tailgate inside cover to access the bulb.

First, use clips to remove these

Then the hand grip and the electrical switch to close

Interesting that this panel already has a lot of sound deadening. Not sure if working?

And then it turned out that most likely this connector had never been removed before - although a counterclock-wise twist worked in the end, it took a lot of effort since it seemed almost glued on!

On this side there is a tab that interferes with more than two fingers able to twist

OEM bulb looks ok actually...

First tested LED bulb...

But unfortunately this first T10 LED bulb I found was WAY too dim, on the sides.  An incandescent bulb gives off light in all directions and the light panel is designed for that, not for singular or limited direction LEDs.

So I dived into all the extra bulbs I had laying around and found these other T10 LEDs

I can't even remember when I got these

But these were WAY too dim. So I finally found a pair of these:

Which after install seemed to be relatively ok, although it still seems a bit bright in the rear direction vs sides.

Hard to tell here...

The right rear side

No tab on this side, very easy to twist and remove to access the bulb.

So after replacing the right side with the same black T10 LED, it was easy to put the tailgate all back together.

So from a distance it looks ok but a closer look....

Shows that the OEM outside bulb (parking and brake feature) is slightly pink, while the LED is very red.

But at least I have it done on both sides.  Eventually this gap in color will encourage me to figure out a better solution but at least for now, I don't have the blank on the left side...