I just read over the papers that came with my car again, and it's not a GLE, it's an SE with all the GLE options. For some reason I made myself believe that it was a GLE.
It has auto, leather, bose, automatic climate control, power everything, ABS, spoiler, alarm, premium wheels, sunroof.
The only obvious differences that I notice so far are the body colored vs. chrome door handles, and white gauges.
What did I miss out on by not by not getting the GLE? Is there wood trim on the GLE dashboard? Is fully loaded SE better then GLE?

[Edited by supertool on 01-19-2001 at 03:14 PM]

 

The difference between the GLE and the SE is the suspension. The SE is a stiffer ride with better handling, plus the SE has a larger leather wrapped steering wheel and white face gauges. Think that's it.

PS.. the GLE doesn't come with the spoiler and the door handles of the GLE are silver, not the body color (those are two dead giveaways)

 

The SE comes standard with fog lights, white faced gauges, rear wing, sport suspension, and "slicer" rims. The GLE did not come with these features but did have standard the BOSE stereo, leather seats, wood grain dash, climate control, and "round holed" rims.

The only real noticeable differences are the wood dash and rims. Fog lights and the rear wing were dealer installed options for the GLE. However, the wood grained dash was available as a kit from nissan so I guess the only real way to tell the difference is the white faced gauges since this was not an option on the GLE and was not available was a dealer installed optin as well.

As far as price point goes, the GLE is the most expensive model when you are looking at BASE prices. If you fully option both the SE and GLE they are pretty close.

 

The SE comes with 215/60/15 and the GLE has skinier tires 205/60/15 , also not mentioned in the above,the GLE has a 1 touch pop out tray below the Cd player.

 

Isn't the model code on the faceplate on the firewall also?

 

Since you have a 96 the alloys are identical to the ones on the gle ( the ugly swirl looking ones that are 15's). It wasn't until the 97 when they bumped up the 15's on the se to 16s that have 5 spokes. Also the SE doesn't have a govenor where the gle ( & gxe ) do. The GLE is more for luxury hence 'Grand Luxury Edition', the SE is more sporty (even though you can get every luxury option the gle has), but I think everyone (on this board) would actually perfer a fully loaded SE over a GLE.

-Nate