Rogue Heater Box Repair!

[Nathan RSC]

 

Hey everyone I am new here but not new to cars. I have a fix for the Nissan Rogue 2014 to 2019 heater box!
If you're not familiar on the second generation Nissan Rogue the door that switches from hot to cold on the driver side develops two cracks and then eventully strips out. Then it will be stuck on hot or cold. The repair is to take it to a Nissan dealer and get the entire box replaced for somewhere around $3,000. I have seen a lot of these that are currently operating normally and every single one except for one has the cracks already formed.
I have been working on a solution for about a year and a half now. (With several falures😅). I think I will have my full scale prototype up and running next week. I have a test heater box set up that I can test it with. If it runs through 10,000 Cycles of hot to cold I think it will be good to go.
I am a shop owner so it is geared more towards shops and repair techs. But it is simple-anyone can do it! A support piece is added to the heater box and the gear in the heater door actuator motor is swapped out. Super easy. With my kit the vehicle is returned to a close to stock condition. Everything mounts and looks like factory.

It is my belief that the heater door has a manufacturing defect and destroys itself. I don't want to say bad things about any company but I have some observational experience with these parts.

Those heater doors are made out of a high quality polypropylene plastic for cold and hot temperature strength and rigidity. As a result they happen to be very much chemical resistant. Almost no glue will stick to them. And the couple glues that do don't work very well to get inside that 19 mm deep bore where the crack is. I have tested so many adhesives!
I have one adhesive set up that I use that works amazing. I have glued polyethylene plastic to one of those heater doors with my system and it held 120 lbs no problem. 120 lbs was my test limit so who knows how strong it really is. But that is tensile strength. I also measured torsional strength which is twisting or turning.
Those motors only put out 8 inch pounds of turning torque. I glued a small 3/8 inch plastic nut to one of those doors using only the surface area on one face of the nut. I measured 77 inch pounds in torque before separating. Some of polypropylene broke off the door too which is amazing! So the adhesive is definitely strong enough. Measuring the torsional strength of the adhesive that way I believe that that door can be reinforced effectively and be much stronger than factory.

I believe this is a permanent solution. Also if installed on a vehicle that hasn't broke yet it will be even stronger because the cracks have not started to form yet and will virtually not be able to form.
Wish I could give more details now but I'm still working everything out. I think I will be up and running in about 8 weeks!

Thanks all!

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[Nathan RSC]

I've seen a lot of these. All but one had cracks already formed. Even all the ones that still had the hot to cold control operating normally. It is a stronger repair to fix them before the ultimate failure point.