Steering wheel paint is bubbling

Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Nissan Navara Forum

Help Support Nissan Navara Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
M

Marto

Member
Joined
Feb 25, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
G’day Everyone,

I currently drive a 08 D40 and I have a question if the following fault would be covered under warranty or not?

The grey plastic on the steering wheel around the cruise control buttons and a little higher is starting to bubble and peel off. Now it looks rather crap and as the rest of the interior is in perfect condition it’s rather disappointing.

I was thinking they were going to say it’s abuse but it’s not from being scratched or abused its literally the paint starting to raise and bubble. The car is only 18 months old and is not used as a work vehicle and only has 37,000 klms on the clock so I would not class the vehicle as old.

What’s the chance of this being replace under warranty and has anyone else have this problem?

Thanks in advance for your help!
 
This has happened to someone else with a D40 on these forums and I'm fairly sure they said Nissan replaced it under warranty.

Mines actually doing the same thing but on the top not on the face where the buttons are. I'm not overly worried by it and since I don't get Nissan to service mine I doubt that it will ever get fixed however if you've got a nice dealer they will probably help you out, it's not like it costs them much to replace it
 
Mine started bubbling around the cruise buttons at about 6 months, or roughly 7 or 8,000km from memory.

Unsightly for sure.

I solved the problem by covering the area with a black film of a heavy contact type material. If I'd have gone to the effort of having it replaced, realistically I would only have to have it done again in the future - decided to fix it once and for all :)
 
Mine is doing the same and to be honest never even thought about a warranty claim but now I am on to it. Thanks

It looks crap and because you look at it every day in a brand new car thats just not right.
 
ants_oz said:
Mine started bubbling around the cruise buttons at about 6 months, or roughly 7 or 8,000km from memory.

Unsightly for sure.

I solved the problem by covering the area with a black film of a heavy contact type material. If I'd have gone to the effort of having it replaced, realistically I would only have to have it done again in the future - decided to fix it once and for all :)
Click to expand...

got any pics, interested to see how it looks.

mines got dirty marks on grey and its quite hard to clean, bloody mechanics with their greasy hands!
 
Yeah I wouldn't mind seeing it either. I would have thought any sticky stuff like contact would eventually go the same way as the standard finish with the sun and heat it would get. The peeling effect of an extra film like contact could possibly be lessened by taking the plastic off and ensure the coverage of whatever you use wraps behind the plastic I guess.
 
Yeah post some pics for sure!

OK I will go to nissan on Monday and see what they have to say! I'll be sure to report back!
 
By popular demand - pic is attached. As you can see - it's not pretty, it's not perfect - but over 20,000km later it's still in perfect condition. Good enough for me.

The film I used is some flash German adhesive vinyl - can't recall the brand. I used two layers - one as a "base layer" so that it will never have to be removed. The "top layer" can be removed without disturbing the base, should that be required. The vinyl area is large enough to cover the peeling.

The peeling is a lacquer - no real news there - plenty of vehicles use that kind of lacquer. My Merc uses something similar....just that it isn't peeling in the Merc... Interesting that it is peeling in a common location on the Nav's - says to me that it's a problem that will keep recurring, so replacing the wheel trim is only delaying the recurrence of the issue. For those who are selling their vehicles it's probably worth doing something about - for people like me, I prefer to find a workable, functional solution for the long haul as my ute will be hanging around for quite a few years yet.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0092 (Large).JPG
    IMG_0092 (Large).JPG
    83.3 KB · Views: 266
Thats sort of how I pictured it working although I was considering doing it to the whole piece of plastic and on both sides. The two layers isn't a bad idea although I'm still thinking it might be better if the covering wrapped around to the back of the plastic, (like you do with contact and books).

Like you I think this is something that has a good chance of happening in any car and it may well be more common for those of us who drive and rest our hands there but being a lacquer it's not going to last forever. I'm tempted to try and screw a new cover out of Nissan and leave it on the shelf until I sell the car but realistically it's never going to knock 1000's of dollars off a trade in (in fact my bet is come trade in time it wont make any difference by itself) so like you a workable solution is probably something I'll end up doing.
 
ants_oz said:
By popular demand - pic is attached. As you can see - it's not pretty, it's not perfect - but over 20,000km later it's still in perfect condition. Good enough for me.

The film I used is some flash German adhesive vinyl - can't recall the brand. I used two layers - one as a "base layer" so that it will never have to be removed. The "top layer" can be removed without disturbing the base, should that be required. The vinyl area is large enough to cover the peeling.

The peeling is a lacquer - no real news there - plenty of vehicles use that kind of lacquer. My Merc uses something similar....just that it isn't peeling in the Merc... Interesting that it is peeling in a common location on the Nav's - says to me that it's a problem that will keep recurring, so replacing the wheel trim is only delaying the recurrence of the issue. For those who are selling their vehicles it's probably worth doing something about - for people like me, I prefer to find a workable, functional solution for the long haul as my ute will be hanging around for quite a few years yet.
Click to expand...

nice one, food for thought hey.
 
has any 1 thought of peeling all the top layer off and leaving the silver undercoat.
thats what i was gonna do if nissan didn't play ball. just a thought
 
This is only a guess but I'd imagine that in peeling the lacquer off you'd risk doing damage to the plastic underneath. The lacquer would really only be there as a protective layer to stop whatever it is underneath scratching or maybe peeling off (depending on what it actually is). I'd imagine you could peel it off and it would definitely stop the bubbling effect but not sure it would be a long lasting remedy like covering it with something decent would be.
 
Worst case, you could remove the thing, give it a light sand, buy some metallic paint that closely matches it and give it a nice light coat or two. Then, with an airbrush, spray some epoxy on the top to coat it. A light rub with 1200 paper will dull the finish nicely, and the epoxy won't ruin the plastic. West Systems #5 would be good, it's a fibreglass resin that I use to make model aircraft parts with.
 
Apologies for any thread dig but as many say ... "did you search?" :sorry3:

Question ... has anyone asked/found/investigated finding out if there's a paint code for the steering wheel colour?

I only ask as I'm considering touch up paint initially followed by the proper respray the way it should've been done in the first place.

Appreciate any help ...
 
Digging old threads is better than starting yet another thread on the same subject, I'd give you an award if we had any but some bastard stole the awards cupboard.

I guess the paint does have a code as such but I doubt even a dealership would know it because they'd just be mass produced bits of plastic put in millions of cars and I doubt the place that makes them are even Nissan generic.

If you were going to the trouble of touching them up you'd probably do yourself a favour by doing both side and maybe even the door switch panel and doing them properly not just touching them up therefore matching may not be a huge issue.

I would reckon touching them up would not be a long term solution.
 
If you wanna match it auto barn has a color wheel you can take out to the car and match it.
Some of the young crew use vinyl wrap. Comes in a few colors. Sh1t they vinyl wrap the whole car. Even saw one in chrome, whoh.
 
I've tried the vinyl wrap idea with a carbon fibre look & it made it look very "ricey" which I'm not a fan of.

Thanks krafty for the extensive reply ... I'm good for awards. The idea of touching it up is motivated by a fear of deploying the airbag during removal.

I've had this happen on a VT Commodore once before ... even with all due care taken with removal.

It seems autopro or autmotive paint store and colour cards might be the only solution.

That or some brave pills ...
 
I believe, there is several other threads on this forum one of which may be the one in which they discuss the replacement of the "clock spring" and they suggest removing the airbag fuse so that it doesn't go off.

I've never done it myself but there has been quite a few people on this forum who've removed their steering wheel for one reason or another, it might be worth looking into.
 
Yep ... read those. Thanks for the tip.

In my case the previous airbag discharge event occurred when it was out of the car and post removal. Ironically for a clock spring replacement on the VT ... hence my reluctance to be piddling about with airbags again.

I can only presume it discharged due to static charge I may've been carrying ... either way ... was expensive and scary exercise.

Anyway ... paint cards it is then.
 

Similar threads

S
New D22 owner, need help
Replies
10
Views
3K
leonm
leonm
H
D22 Lifts
Replies
1
Views
2K
Horatius
H
Y
New to D22’s
Replies
6
Views
2K
Young_Horvy
Y
S
Nissan NP300 D22 2010 unsolvable ABS problem
Replies
8
Views
2K
tweak'e
tweak'e
H
D22 Battery Light
Replies
10
Views
2K
Erick
E

Latest posts

Back
Top