This Nissan Elgrand recently came to us for a double din stereo upgrade. As the Japanese radio it came with cannot work with North American frequencies, this is a very common purchase. This particular Elgrand runs a factory double din chassis radio so no dash kit/mounting kit is necessarily required although the opening is slightly larger than the Sony XAV-AX5000 we installed. Of course this head unit offers USB inputs and Apple CarPlay as well as Android Auto.
One thing about this Elgrand was that the shop that previously worked on the vehicle noticed a battery drain issue and suspected the factory radio was causing it, so they had jumped the constant power to an ignition switched source. While this prevents any battery drain, it also has the issue of resetting the radio presets and clock every time the car is turned off. For this application, we gave the customer a workaround solution which was a on/off switch for the constant power so he could decide whether or not to leave it on constant. If the car is parked for many days at a time, it would be best to turn it off to preserve the battery but for daily usage it would be fine to leave it on.
Additionally, we found that the factory doors had little to no real sound deadening. There is some lightweight low density fabric on the plastic door card but the car itself felt quite tinny. We added Buzzmat to the inner and outer door skin for a quieter ride and better sound quality. The car had Pioneer speakers from Japan which we left untouched.
