J30 AC Controls replacement bulbs

[carlos_knology]

For you J30 owners. If your AC control BUTTONS (not the display itself) have gone dark at night, you probably need to replace the four tiny bulbs inside the ac controls unit.

To get to them, remove the plastic trim around the shifter. It just pulls up. With the shifter trim off, you'll see two screws at the bottom of the wood trim. Remove those two screws.

For this next step, it helps to set your parking brake and move the shifter to one of the low gears. It will give you more room to work.

To remove the wood trim, carefully pull on the botton of the wood trim. Preferably, use a hook tool to pull on the top of the wood trim. There are two retaining clips on the top of the wood trim (below your ac vents and clock). Just be careful you don't crack the wood trim. Be patient.

Once you have the wood trim off, swing it from left to right so you can unplug the cigarette lighter wire harness.

Now that the wood trim is out of the way, you'll notice that the stereo and ac controls are mounted together on a single bracket/assembly held in place by four screws - two on top, two on bottom.

Remove these four screws and you'll be able to pull out the Bose head unit and ac controls as one piece. Look behind the ac controls and you'll see 4 holes with what looks like 4 phillips-head plastic screws. Those are your light bulbs. Give it a half-twist and out they come!

The bulb part number is 28529-10Y00 - they cost .30 each at Infiniti of Scottsdale.

Here's a pic of the bulbs with a dime for size reference.

Carlos

[VimyJ]

Nice post, Carlos. I hope you don't mind if it goes into my DYI files. I have one bulb out on the north west area of my preset buttons, CD power, etc. Might as well change everything while I'm there. Do you know if these bulbs are common to all Nissan products?

[carlos_knology]

I would think you can find this bulb for the Nissan Maxima but the boneheads at my local Nissan dealer had no clue. I brought them the bulbs for reference and the finally found something that looked like it but it did not have the plastic green sleeve on it.

However they wanted about $4 PER BULB!!!! I told them to forget it and ordered them from Infiniti of Scottsdale.

Carlos

[Eswift]

i had a post about these lights a few months back somewhere on nico. had both nissan and infiniti part numbers. should be about 30 something cents from an infiniti dealer.

[Mayhem_J30]

common failure on the maxima/i30. first i've heard of them going out on the J. Good job on the writeup carlos. My luck lately I'll be needing it sooner then expected.

[VimyJ]

Where did you find that giant novelty dime? I had no idea those bulbs where so big!

[diamondj30]

good post,ive done a couple so far.

[CyberCJ30]

I was curious if those bulbs might be available in a different color?

[carlos_knology]

I guess you could make them another color. The green part is just a plastic sleeve slid over a clear bulb. Of course, it wouldn't match any of your other bulbs but if you really want to, I guess you could.

Carlos

[CyberCJ30]

Well the other bulbs are no problem for me to replace the color, the only ones I saw as a problem were the dash lights but they don't seem too troublesome now.

[slaughtermimms]

You need to careful, I had a dealer tell me the bulbs were not sold without the switch which goes for about $260. Some new Q owners are getting riped off. So put the word out great info!

[lonallenq45]

The other alternative is to go to Radio Shack and buy the same bulbs. They come in a clear bubble pack, two bulbs to a pack with 1-2" electrical leads. I think the bulbs are $2 for the pair.

You can remove the blue rubber cover once you have the bulb removed from the brown base. Pay attention to how the wires/leads go into the old base and clip the leads on the new bulbs to the same length as the old, put the blue cover on the new bulb and thread the leads through the base just like the old ones were and use a jewelers screwdriver to tuck the ends of the leads into place. Good as new. Now if you can truely get the bulbs with the base and covers on them for 30 cents then I wouldn't bother with the DIY stuff I just outlined.

[Eswift]

you can, but the DIY is a (more laborious) option. Infiniti of Lisle usually stocks those bulbs.

[msudawgs98]

Can any of you guys give me the number to infiniti of scottsdale or infiniti of lisle. the infiniti dealer in my area (2hrs away) doesn't stock these bulbs. i went to the nissan dealer nearby and they didn't know what the heck i'm talking about, eventhough i showed em the bulbs. anyway, need your help

[cweberj30t]

Infiniti Scottsdale: 1.888.216.5328

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