How to you take out the vents that are on the dash. It seems to be a problem area in these cars. On my new 3rd gen the driver side dash vent is broken, and also on my brother's 3rd gen the driver side vent is broken. My problem is I don't see how they come out. I need to pull one from the junkyard.

 

the triangle-shaped defroster ones? grip it on one of the vanes and just kindof pull it out... you might want to get a thin screwdriver to pry it up a little or something, to make it less likely to break pieces off down into the tube... plus you're gonna need to know how not to damage it when you nab some more from the JY

 

so they do just pull out? That's what I was hoping, but they must require a pretty good pull. I tried tugging on them a little bit but it did not want to move. I am talking about the vents (one on each side of the dash) that is about half way up the dash, on either side of the dash, not the vents in the center right next to the windshield.

 

yea, the ones that blow air onto the door's windows to defrost them. they pull kindof up and out. but they are really easy to break.

 

wonderful. So why do they always break? That really does not seem like an area you would touch a lot.

 

thin, weak, brittle plastic is the name of the game. i guess the sun beats down on them through the windshield then you use the defroster and it gets cold and enough hot/cold cycles and they just get weak and brittle.

 

I never had to use the defroster, but mine broke anyways. I got lucky and managed to get a set of black ones from a partout a while back (gives it a nice contrast to the burgundy color). What I did was use a thin screwdriver to pry it out, that should be all you need to then carefully pull it out. This is why I now use a sunshade btw, I'm hoping it will help prevent these vents from breaking among other things.

 

i've never had a problem with mine, so i'm not sure...but i remember reading that they're screwed in from the bottom and that you had to remove the dash to take them off.

if yours are already broken, you might as well try to see if you can pry them off. i guess it couldn't hurt anything.

 

unless you're thinking about a different set of vents, then no, they aren't screwed into place. the only ones that are screwed in are the face vents (2 in middle, 2 on outside) but not the ones on top of the dash by the door mirrors, and not the long vent slit up by the windshield.

 

http://www.courtesyparts.com/maxima-...1724_1736.html

 

66571 is the part I am talking about, so we are all on the same page. Thanks for that Greeny!

 

The best bet is to push them out from underneath the dash, but it is possible to pull them straight out without breaking them, you just have to be extremely careful. Don't pull from the middle of the fin, and don't yank. They are brittle, but it's about the only part on the 3rd gen that is.

 

can you push them out from under the dash without removing anything?

 

I picked up a few at the junk yard this weekend. I saw probably 20 third gens this Saturday and only 2 of them had black no broken vents. I was surprised when I saw how many of them had broken vents. The only proboble I had was that the tabs that hold them in under the dash like to break.