Hi all,

I'm considering buying a 2006 with low mileage for a great price from an Infiniti dealer. My only qualm with the deal, believe it or not, is this ridiculous wood trim which I believe to be aftermarket. I really don't like it.

Has anyone had any success removing this sort of thing from the aluminum trim underneath? Is it possible to do or will any attempts to peal the fake wood destroy the aluminum?

Would I be better off trying to scrounge up the aluminum parts from ebay and the For Sale section of the forum and just do a straight replacement? It seems like it wouldn't be impossible to find replacement aluminum trim for the center console, but the steering wheel and the gauge area... doesn't seem like something that would be easy to find.

Or am I completely nuts?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

I'd use a heatgun or hairdryer to hear up the adhesive before pulling it off. My G came with factory woodgrain and I've occasionally looked into swapping for aluminum trim and have had no luck. You'd have to buy everything from the dealer, which is ludicrously expensive.

 

You're not crazy. That is hideous. Wood has no place in a car.

 

Hey did you have any luck getting the wood grain off without damaging the aluminum? I have a couple tiny fine scratches on my radio faceplate and because I'm a perfectionist I entertain the idea of finding a perfect faceplate, That dang aluminum scratches so easily, it was perfect until I had nissan install a new clutch / flywheel
Anyhow, I found a faceplate on ebay with the wood grain, in theory the aluminum should be like brand new underneath so I'm wondering if it's worth buying or not

looking forward to a reply

 

I got the wood off the steering wheel's "aluminum" parts, which are actually plastic. I removed the wood from all of the other plastic parts as well. I have not removed it from the aluminum on the center console, for the same reason that you're afraid of: I don't know if removing the adhesive will damage the aluminum underneath (I'm pretty sure it's real aluminum as opposed to the silver-colored plastic on the steering wheel). Perhaps someone else has an experience to share.

If you are feeling brave and order that faceplate, please let me know how it works out for you.

PS - this is a fairly epic thread revival! Glad I had at least some info to share!

 

haha, cool man. I would guess if it came off the plastic silver parts without damaging them that it will come off the aluminum just as nicely.

I'll def let ya know if I buy it and try it. Let me know if you get the courage to remove yours lol

I might just try some rubbing compound on the tiny fine scratches on my faceplate though.

 

well,,, I just figured it out. for some reason nissan applied stick on wood veneer to all the other parts, however for the faceplate, it's truly a brown plastic one piece design... :/

There might be more parts that are like this, you'll be able to tell by looking at them though, if they're brown plastic and seamless where a applied sticker would go, then probably no aluminum

I found this out when I looked at the rear picture of both. you can see the aluminum one is a black plastic, the wood one is brown and doesn't look like it would have aluminum.

 

actually yours in your picture looks like it is only a sticker since you can see the chrome on the sides. I'd peel it off if I were you

 

Thanks for the update. Yup it's definitely a sticker on mine. Maybe in the summer I'll remove the rest of it.

 

right on broski

 

Beleive it or not, that was actually a $300 option to have the wood trim option.


Wood trim was one of the reasons I was turned off by the M35x of mid-2000 vintage. Seems most were wood-trimmed