Hello! I decided to share my first Nissan journey!
How it started...
A friend had a low mileage 57 plate Micra 1.2 and they got a new car. At this point I had been without a car for 18 months and decided I would get it as a run around.
Interestingly i am now sceptical of the 37*** miles as the MOT history shows the following:
2010 September - Pass - 12,670
2011 September - Pass - 38,460
2012 September - Pass - 15,183
2013 September - Pass - 15,806
2019 March - Pass - 16,633
2020 December - Pass - 23,757
2021 December Fail/Pass - 28,832- Headlight alignment and usual wear and tear on brake discs/tyres
2022 December - 34,008 - Pass - advisory ball joint
I have owned it for 2 weeks and replaced the boot lock and switch (Nissan shop website wanted over £300 for the parts which i managed to source from Amazon of all places and it cost £32 total. Replaced these and now the boot no longer unlocks/locks constantly (or just locked and refused to open again unless you crawled into the boot after putting the back seat down to access the little release switch.
Found a way around the radio code being lost then managed to get the radio code from the forum (I did try to reply thanking the person who provided it but that one forum page now freezes up every time i try to access it.
To be honest if the mileage is genuine then the body work isn't great. Lots of swirl marks and a few deeper scratches. I suspect the bonnet was caused by the previous owners neighbours cat always jumping on it to try catch birds that sat on the car roof when in the driveway.
I am hopefully that most if not all of these will come out once i have time to give the car a proper detailing.
Other things to note are the steel wheels and lack of wheel trims, one of the steelies has a nice dent in the rim from potholes in my city (welcome to Scotland lol).
Plans going forward:
Detailing the car.
- A set of factory OEM alloys with a slightly wider tyre than present to help soak up the bumps and protect the alloys.
- From pictures i have seen the C+C seems to have shallower headlights (they don't appear to come as far up the front wings) so i am wondering if C+C wings, head lights and bonnet would swap straight over?
- I want to source a leather interior although i rather like the cubby hole under the passenger seat which i would like to keep!
- White dials from another model if possible
- Steering wheel and gearknob from a sportier model if they will fit and hopefully keep the audio control on the steering wheel (tbf the little wheel in the car is small and makes the car feel like a go kart).
- Debadging the Micra and 1.2 badges from the tailgate.
- I would like to smooth the tailgate and relocate the number plate recess to the rear number (unsure about this as does not appear to have been done before)
- Interior plastics surrounding head unit, vents, dash cluster, door handles and the tweeters on the doors to be painted silver or possibly hydro dipped carbon fibre (I did think of carbon wrap but does not appear to be a lasting finish and looks scruffy really quickly from what i have seen)
- Possibly some nicer pedals (again looking into the sportier models to see what was supplied on them)
- Possible change from a single din dash to a double din dash (single din has a really handy storage compartment but i feel like it makes the interior look really dated)
- If a black dash exists swap existing grey dash out for a black one.
- currently manual fans/heat over the digital and i prefer this tbh
- replacement parcel shelf as the current one is snapped
- The front passenger side wing appears to be sound but where it meets the bonnet line it appears somebody has tried to pry it up (will make sure to photograph it and post here)
- SR160 bumper (is this the same as the C+C front bumper?)
- possibly a tailgate swap to a none wiper version if possible? OR simply remove the wiper and have the non wiper glass fitted (assuming the rear wiper delete was a factory option)
Ideally I would like it resprayed a dark grey or black (currently silver) but i think this might be going a little to far now that i am wondering about the mileage.
IF anybody has done any of these things themselves I would love to hear how it went and see the results!
I will add pictures of the car shortly so people can see the starting point (haven't washed it yet) and them future update pictures will have a previous stage for comparison.
Yes, I know its only a Micra and i never thought I would bother with such a car having owned all sorts of performance saloons and hatchbacks before (even a chipped TDI as well). Ideally a bigger engine for motorway travel would have been nice but the insurance value is about 5 times higher than what the car cost me and i know clean examples with double and even triple the mileage are going for a lot more in most cases.
Will update soon with pictures!
How it started...
A friend had a low mileage 57 plate Micra 1.2 and they got a new car. At this point I had been without a car for 18 months and decided I would get it as a run around.
Interestingly i am now sceptical of the 37*** miles as the MOT history shows the following:
2010 September - Pass - 12,670
2011 September - Pass - 38,460
2012 September - Pass - 15,183
2013 September - Pass - 15,806
2019 March - Pass - 16,633
2020 December - Pass - 23,757
2021 December Fail/Pass - 28,832- Headlight alignment and usual wear and tear on brake discs/tyres
2022 December - 34,008 - Pass - advisory ball joint
I have owned it for 2 weeks and replaced the boot lock and switch (Nissan shop website wanted over £300 for the parts which i managed to source from Amazon of all places and it cost £32 total. Replaced these and now the boot no longer unlocks/locks constantly (or just locked and refused to open again unless you crawled into the boot after putting the back seat down to access the little release switch.
Found a way around the radio code being lost then managed to get the radio code from the forum (I did try to reply thanking the person who provided it but that one forum page now freezes up every time i try to access it.
To be honest if the mileage is genuine then the body work isn't great. Lots of swirl marks and a few deeper scratches. I suspect the bonnet was caused by the previous owners neighbours cat always jumping on it to try catch birds that sat on the car roof when in the driveway.
I am hopefully that most if not all of these will come out once i have time to give the car a proper detailing.
Other things to note are the steel wheels and lack of wheel trims, one of the steelies has a nice dent in the rim from potholes in my city (welcome to Scotland lol).
Plans going forward:
Detailing the car.
- A set of factory OEM alloys with a slightly wider tyre than present to help soak up the bumps and protect the alloys.
- From pictures i have seen the C+C seems to have shallower headlights (they don't appear to come as far up the front wings) so i am wondering if C+C wings, head lights and bonnet would swap straight over?
- I want to source a leather interior although i rather like the cubby hole under the passenger seat which i would like to keep!
- White dials from another model if possible
- Steering wheel and gearknob from a sportier model if they will fit and hopefully keep the audio control on the steering wheel (tbf the little wheel in the car is small and makes the car feel like a go kart).
- Debadging the Micra and 1.2 badges from the tailgate.
- I would like to smooth the tailgate and relocate the number plate recess to the rear number (unsure about this as does not appear to have been done before)
- Interior plastics surrounding head unit, vents, dash cluster, door handles and the tweeters on the doors to be painted silver or possibly hydro dipped carbon fibre (I did think of carbon wrap but does not appear to be a lasting finish and looks scruffy really quickly from what i have seen)
- Possibly some nicer pedals (again looking into the sportier models to see what was supplied on them)
- Possible change from a single din dash to a double din dash (single din has a really handy storage compartment but i feel like it makes the interior look really dated)
- If a black dash exists swap existing grey dash out for a black one.
- currently manual fans/heat over the digital and i prefer this tbh
- replacement parcel shelf as the current one is snapped
- The front passenger side wing appears to be sound but where it meets the bonnet line it appears somebody has tried to pry it up (will make sure to photograph it and post here)
- SR160 bumper (is this the same as the C+C front bumper?)
- possibly a tailgate swap to a none wiper version if possible? OR simply remove the wiper and have the non wiper glass fitted (assuming the rear wiper delete was a factory option)
Ideally I would like it resprayed a dark grey or black (currently silver) but i think this might be going a little to far now that i am wondering about the mileage.
IF anybody has done any of these things themselves I would love to hear how it went and see the results!
I will add pictures of the car shortly so people can see the starting point (haven't washed it yet) and them future update pictures will have a previous stage for comparison.
Yes, I know its only a Micra and i never thought I would bother with such a car having owned all sorts of performance saloons and hatchbacks before (even a chipped TDI as well). Ideally a bigger engine for motorway travel would have been nice but the insurance value is about 5 times higher than what the car cost me and i know clean examples with double and even triple the mileage are going for a lot more in most cases.
Will update soon with pictures!
