..."
so brittle it will break when you breathe on it."
Like a potato chip. I found out the hard way because of wanting to repair the clock.
I foolishly watched a few videos all showing how to remove the cover by prying from the sides. In 'cautious' haste (many things to fix / limited time) I gently attempted it. The 1000 yard stare and shock looking at the first crack made me want to give up because the snap was so clean pressing it back together made the break disappear. So I used some cyanoacrylate and called it a day. After thinking about it I realized that nobody online knew what they were talking about and that
the proper way to remove these was actually simple, effective and didn't involve prying or possibly denting the dash.
After taking it out, I tried repairing the clock, but the clock only lasted for a day and was intermittent. Got super lucky and found another vent-clock assembly in black at a junk yard while looking for other path-parts and bargained for $25. ( It was laying face down under the adjacent vehicle on oily / muddy / rough asphalt and I missed it on previous visits. Only reason I noticed it was because I went to look under the junked Pathfinder and happened to glance to the side at it. Who knows how much rain had fallen on it, picked it up and the face / bezel was at 95%. Couldn't believe it, nor why someone discarded it).
Was going to swap the clock but liked the look of the black matching the speedo black bezel combo better and remembered one video saying the black was stronger plastic so I kept it. Used Meguiar's car polish on the disassembled clear plastic clock window and brought the window back to showroom, found obvious cold solder joints, and when I hooked it all back up the LED's were robust and bright and it has been keeping perfect time etc. (circuit board was pretty much pristine inside).
I compressed / weakened the assembly metal 'prongs', lightly sanded the inside dash receiving plastic edges, lube it all up and popped it back in. Doing this 'should' make it much, much easier to remove now 'if' I get the courage again or 'have to'.
Unless it's already been posted here, I
ain't giving up the safe removal method out of pure spite / anger that these knuckleheads actually posted videos or even thought for a moment that prying was a good idea. I might be guilty of being so gullible or not doing enough research perhaps, but I'm still pissed. Or maybe they're the same people selling intact assemblies on eBay and are creating demand by demonstrating the worst method possible(?).
https://imgur.com/Iu1AU01
https://imgur.com/MNVzzBR