Hi,

I replaced my 2017 Head Unit with a 2018 to gain android auto. It was pretty much plug and play as in this thread:

https://maxima.org/forums/8th-genera...w-upgrade.html

After that, the SD card was damaged later on and from what I read, all Maxima SD cards are pre-programmed from Nissan and locked to the head unit's s/n and car's VIN number. I do not know how that could be because the 2018 unit was working fine with the wrong VIN# for quite some time.

Can anyone confirm that the VIN lock is actually used. According to other posts, only the Murano and Maxima are vin locked. Also, it seems it may be much cheaper to just acquire a new head unit than buy a new SD card from Nissan. I still have my 2017 SD card and head unit and will be poking around the software on it to see if I can hack something on a generic SD card (for the 2018 model) to make it work in the meantime. Looks like from other people $900 is the price of an SD Card replacement from Nissan - I only paid $300 on Ebay for the entire replacement unit (with AC controller still attached).. Nissan are a bunch of thieves!

Thanks in Advance!

-Greg

 

Wish I could offer help, but my swap was a year earlier (‘17 Platinum head unit into my ‘16 SL) and was plug and play. Your dilemma has me thinking if I should try to make a copy of the SD card currently in my working ‘17 unit. I guess I was lucky that the seller of the ‘17 head unit provided the VIN of the car it came out of.

I just did a quick check and the latest Nav SD card update available for an ‘18 Max is $129 from Nissan. Unless I’m missing something, you may want to confirm with Nissan on the cost. Unless they can’t provide without original ‘18 VIN in your case. Nissan.Navigation.com states (and they have a live chat that you might be able to get questions answered):

Your navigation system Serial Number is needed in order to purchase a map update.

Instructions on how to find your navigation system's Serial Number:

1) Push 'Information'
2) Push 'Navigation Version'
3) Record the Serial Number (should be 8 digits) and may contain leading 0's (omit the hyphen)

Hope your able to get your problem figured out cheaply. Good luck.

 

Yeah, I gather all of that. I am just reluctant to buy a SD card for (close to) $300 when I can buy an entire new deck for just over $300

I shouldn't have tossed the card - didn't know setting were saved on it.

Also, when a new maps card is purchased, it requires swapping back and forth the new map card and the old SD card upon install - probably to copy the saved data, etc. I went ahead and bought a new card from Nissan - we'll see what happens.. I'll return it if it doesn't work.. they may kick back with a 2017 SR vin for a 2018 platinum SD card model - we'll see.. I'll post back with results.