2002 I35 Navigation Unit

[ajabbari]

Hi everyone (this is my first post here)...

Recently the GPS unit (the popup display) started making popping noises and motions when extending out and retracting back into the dash. When I took it in last time for an oil change I had the dealership take a look at it. They pretty much said the gears are stripped and that they'd have to replace the whole unit (which apparently will run me $3400). Of course, I said no.

I'm thinking about cracking this open now and fixing it myself, provided I can find a place to either buy or have the gear(s) in question reproduced. I was wondering if anyone here has any sort of documentation specifically in relation to removing the display unit from the dash. Even more helpful would be documentation regarding the display unit itself, but I'm guessing that's wishful thinking.

On the other hand if any of you have an extra display unit that you are looking to get rid of or that maybe has a broken screen but a sound drive mechanism that may be useful too.

Oh one more thing, if anyone has done something like this before, where would be a good place to look for gears in Southern California.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Welcome!

I wonder what would cause the mechanism to strip like that...

There should be documentation for removing the display in the FSMSpecifically, I'd look in the Body/Trim section here.

[snwbrdr435]

bring it to n auto sound place and see what they think they might be able to just fix the gears

[ajabbari]

Thanks for the tip about the FSM, I'll look into it.

I'm not sure why the gears would have stripped (or even if they did, I wouldn't be surprised if I open it up and it turns out there's something else going on and the tech just took a guess at what was going on). I've never put any sort of pressure on the screen myself so if it does turn out that there is gear stripping, I'd have to assume that maybe someone who was giving it a car wash or detailing it may have accidentally opened it up and not known how to close it or something.

[ajabbari]

Well, I just got done searching through the FSM and there seems to be no mention of the navigation unit. I already know how to open up the surrounding area of the center console, I guess the trick now will be figuring out how to detach the unit holding the screen. It's obviously too late tonight to do this and I'm not sure how much time I'll have after work this week but when I do get around to it I'll try to take some photos of the process and maybe post them up for illustrative purposes.

One of the problems I'm running into with this whole thing is that apparently the GPS system was fairly rare for the I35 which is making it extremely difficult to find documentation or parts for it.

[MinisterofDOOM]

It's obviously too late tonight to do this and I'm not sure how much time I'll have after work this week but when I do get around to it I'll try to take some photos of the process and maybe post them up for illustrative purposes.

Please do!

[ajabbari]

So I went ahead and took the top part of the console apart tonight. By far the biggest pain was getting the vents below the clock out. After that the top panel covering the nav unit was fairly easy to remove. I unfortunately didn't have a chance to take photos tonight, but I'll try to do it when I open it up to put the screen back in (I've removed the display unit for the time being).

Removing the actual display unit is probably the easiest part. It is held in place by three screws. The only trick is that the video and power cables in the back are very short and are a bit of a pain to remove. There are clips on each one that you press in and then the connector can be gently wiggled out. There are only two cables involved.

I tried opening up the display unit, but this is going to be a pretty major task, which is only compounded by the fact that apparently the screws on the mounting frame don't want to come loose preventing me from gaining access to a vital screw that needs to be unscrewed if one wants to have any hope of removing the drive mechanism. Also there are a couple of very delicate flat brown ribbon cables inside the display that don't look like they were ever meant to have been removed after being inserted.

From a cursory glance, I can see the most of the gears and they look ok to me. If there is damage to a gear it is on the side that is not visible to me. It is nearly impossible to have the unit connected to the cables while watching the screen pop out, which will make the diagnosis of the issue a bit more of a challenge. One thing that is for sure is that this is NOT a $3400 part. It's just an LCD and a very basic video interface. At most the whole thing would be worth $500.

I do have a model number now for just the display unit (DP5W-3860US), if any of you have access to pricing for genuine nissan or infiniti parts I'd appreciate the info. I suppose that if I can just find this unit for a reasonable price, I'd probably still just order that and replace the display in its entirety. Looking at what will be involved with opening this thing up, I'm a bit worried about being able to piece everything back together the same way.

[brianw]

Lookup discount Nissan parts dealers-- Southpoint, Courtesy, nissanparts.cc, Jerry Rome Nissan, etc... actually the last 2 might be the same, it's been a while. :p

[ajabbari]

Tried this... the dealer said the it is an "Infiniti Only" part. I also called the local Infiniti dealership with the part number for the display unit.... aside from telling me it was a "special part" with certain provisions and limited stock, they quoted me $3700. So it looks like replacing the unit outright will not be an option.

I'm still working on getting this thing open. Let's just say that whoever put this together wanted to make it as much of a pain as possible to get to anything meaningful in there. I also still haven't been able to free the stuck screws on the mounting mechanism and as the mount is blocking a couple of screws that look vital to being able to open the thing this could prove to be a problem. I've already tried a small shot of WD40 on a couple of the screws to loosen them up, so far, no dice.

I'm really trying to avoid the urge to go all out on these mainly because I'm really worried about stripping the heads (which looks like it would be pretty easy to do at this point). So I'll need to make a decision soon, one other option would be to drill a hole through the rail to access the screw underneath, I think I could do this without compromising the rail in any way, however I would still prefer a non-destructive approach.

[teksurv]

I also have a 2002 I35 with factory NAV. I also have the same gear grinding on close issue. I have remove mine like you, and decided not to go through the hassle of full disassembly.

I did find that placing a rubber "bumper" inside the cavity where the top edge of the screen itself rests on closure fixed the noise. It stops the motor without burning it out at what seems to be the proper position. It seemed that before I did this that the lid looked sunken in. Perhaps there is a factory "stopper" that deofrms or is lost with age.

[ajabbari]

With mine I don't know if that would make a difference. It pretty much makes a periodic pop pop pop all the way up and all the way down. I'm going to be having a local reputable automotive audio repair shop give me an assesment on repairing it tomorrow. They supposedly have experience dealing with nav, multimedia systems and pop-up displays. If the price is reasonable and they're willing to warrant their work I'll consider just having them fix it as they'd both have the tools and the experience to hopefully do a better job. One of the issues I face fixing this myself is that even if I got it open without damaging it, I'd still have to find a source for replacement gears. So this may simplify that process quite a bit.

I'm also planning on getting another upgrade in while I have the dash open which is to swap out the lighting in the clock with white led's instead. I'm guessing that of the people who have these nav units (which apparently aren't that many) we aren't the only ones having these issues, sounds like it may be a design flaw in the gearing, or just a side effect of having such an overly complex (but cool) mechanism responsible for popping the screen up.

[ajabbari]

So I just got a call back from the shop that was looking at the screen. Apparently one of the gears has lost two teeth. They currently don't have any that would fit the bill, Infiniti is quoting $3200 for the whole thing and says they can't (or won't) supply individual parts, and it would seem that for the time being there isn't much that can be done as it is supposedly very expensive to have molds made just to make one gear.

Basically they told me that they will be taking extensive photos of the bad gear, and they'll go ahead and reassemble the unit and return it to me for the time being. If they happen to run into a unit later on that happens to have that gear they'll contact me (I'm not going to hold my breath on that one). I'm going to continue looking around for an inexpensive fix for the time being. However I really don't want to throw a lot of money at this as I'm starting to look rather intensely at the new G37's that are coming out soon

[xerexabante]

try to go to an R/C place where they have gears. worth the shot

[ajabbari]

Update: I got the unit back from the repair guy and have completely disassembled it myself. The damaged gear has been identified and will be removed shortly. I'm looking for a place that will custom manufacture the gear. There's already one place I've run into on the east coast that apparently reverse engineers gears and mills them out of pretty much any material you want. Based on what I saw on their site it looked like this is something they'd do for less than $400 (big improvement over the numbers I've been seeing so far). I'm now looking for local shops that would do the same thing for a reasonable price. I've also had it suggested to me to consider a do-it-yourself molding kit where you can cast your own molded objects in resin. This would only cost me $30, however, how I will accurately reproduce the missing gears in the mold could present some issues. If I can't get the custom manufacturing costs down to around $200, I may consider the DIY route first before spending any more on this.

I'm also trying to be realistic right now as far as how much I invest in this whole endeavor since I'm guessing that the most I could leverage out of a working GPS unit if I decide to sell the car is about $1000. On the other hand, there's the possibility I may decide to keep the car for longer and I'd want a working GPS for my own benefit (and the simple fact that in principle I have a problem with something that is otherwise in perfect working order being rendered useless by one stupid gear). If I wind up sinking $1000 into this I will have blown a lot more money on this than it is really worth, even if it is a bargain by Infiniti's standards.

[ajabbari]

Brief update folks (becuase it's kind of late right now and I should really get to bed). The pop-up screen is now fixed and working again. All of the professional manufacturing options ended up being too pricey as the minimum orders would end up being around $2000. So I decided to go with the personal molding kit. Long story short, it's taken a few weeks of on and off efforts after getting home from work to get everything done (there were a couple of bumps in the road). But the bottom line is that tonight I put one of the reproductions into the unit, relubricated everything, reinstalled it in the car and voila, its working like new again.

The grand total for all of this... ? Around $250 and about $150 of that was unrelated to the gear itself (had to buy a drill and some extractor bits to forcibly remove a stuck screw).