cheap arse, fragile Nissan products

this is a rant plus a kick up my arse at same time.

Was fitting the 80 Series air box this arvo and as I have an Airflow snorkle, I had to take the fron left flare and under guard off to get inside the wheel well. The Airflow snorkle has a solid 90 deg bend from inside the wheel arch to the pre-cleaner / water trap box in the D22. Was a pita to fit in the first place.

All screws un-done. Carefully pulling the flare off from front to rear..... The pins inside the flare are weak as piss and I broke 3 of them. Having had the right rear flare ripped of while 4 wheeling about 6 months ago I knew how they were mounted and how to pull them off and they still frickin broke!!!! Its the thinnest fricking plasitc on the planet! How the hell can Nissan sell such shit. And the pins on mine were so frickin tight into the body mounts..... its like the put the strong plastic in the pins (which would be 50c to replace if broken) and weak shit in the flare mounts. WTF!

Rant - it will cost around $350 for a new flare and another $150 to have it colour coded even goin thru Nizzbits. Nissan sell their plastics in neutral grey so no matter what colour your ute, you;ll have to pay for the colour match.

When the rear flare went I found one a spare at a wreckers for $160 and just painted it up, so hope I can grab another. Still going on the air box too......

Mate that sucks. I bet there's a trick to it, like you can only remove the flares if the rear-view mirror is in night-mode and your high beam is on.

yeah they are ridiciusly thin but i didnt have any break when i did my snorkel

I had it off when I put the snorkle on 2 years ago - no issues then. Rant over. Will look for plastic welder shop this week and see if they can fix it or something...

have you tried the nissan 4x4 wreckers in vic (cant remember the exact name) maybe you could get a little lucky and jag one the same colour..... maybe...

I had a rear flare get ripped off when i had a wheel fall off (long story short, don't park in a dodgy ghetto of a place and then let your non car savy mate drive your car so you can sleep) and had the same problem, the plastic tags in the flare broke off, i couldn't justify spending so much on a plastic flare so thought 'what the hell' and used some of that sillastic stuff you use to replace gaskets with, i figured if it didnt work i'd get it properly done with a plastic welder, but so far, 6 months later, no problems, flare still tight and won't budge, just line the correct tab up where it was, clean everything then smear that gasket stuff all over it, let it dry, then put some more on, refit, done!

That's a reasonable idea. Haven't started fixing it yet so might give that a go

how come you had to pull the flare off........ I fitted one the other day and cant see why you would need to pull the flare off????

Yeah - that's why it's also a kick up my arse as well

Tried a panel beater for aftermarket clips ?

The clips were ripped off the flare. Still got all the bits n pieces. The clips are nice n strong, it's how they were connected to the flare I was whinging about earlier

Ah righto. Id try a wrecker then.