your dealer is lying to you. courtesyparts is an online store of an actual nissan dealer (like your dealer) called courtesy nissan and they sell genuine nissan oem parts. i know cause im a pretty regular customer of theirs.

Courtesy Nissan - Nissan Dallas - Nissan McKinney - Nissan Mesquite - Nissan Lewisville - Nissan Plano - Texas, TX

im not sure if nissanpartzone is an actual dealer or not, but ive bought maintenance parts from them in the past and they too sell genuine nissan parts.

dont listen to everything your dealer says. they're out to make money from service and they will charge you an arm and a leg for a 15min job. you can source your own metric screws too with standard philips or hex head. :) no need to use the security screws.

just take one of the security screws off while you wait for your steering lock to arrive.. bring the screw to your local acehardware and just find the same thread and pitch, length. :)

sorry to hear about the other problems. in general the Z is a very reliable car.

So i tapped my steering lock car works now no way to explain to the dealer that its not working if i cant prove it. Should i just order the new revision since i have an 09 with 37k miles and its probably not covered under warranty?Also how long does the tapping fix last anyone test that lol.

Pull the fuse or cut the brown wire with the lock in the unlock position and be done with it ,money out of pocket:hello:

I just read your fix thread thanks i think you just saved me 500 bucks and alot of headache lol i havnt drove my Z for a week!

That's cool this New Years have a drink for me.:tiphat:

My '09 is currently at a Nissan Dealer to have this repaired. Did not start this morning until I played around with the steering column. Drove it right to the garage. This was the 3rd time it happened in the last 2 weeks and I don't want to take any chances of it happening again and leaving me stranded. This was going to be a very expensive fix, almost $1,500 but they told me it will be covered under the warranty so there is no cost to me! Thank goodness!

The good news is its covered under warranty
The bad news is you still have the same problem with the new SL
You should have pulled that fuse along time ago,and if you did you would have your car now.

If that's not worth a rep, I don't know what is. ;)

Am I screwed having to buy another steering column lock if my steering wheel is locked and my ingition switched stuck at "locked"?

Yes , but I would try banging on it with a hammer and turning the key on.

While it is still installed? If it does work, should I remove the fuse right away? Thanks.

Which (where?) fuse should I remove?

Just bought a 2009 yesterday. First thing i did was remove the fuse !!!! LOL. Thanks to everyone who has explained how to do it!!!

34ST: HERE !!!
http://www.the370z.com/diy-section-d...d-real-30.html

Your welcome I'm glad you didn't find out the hard way.

So frustrating. This just happened to our 370Z. The dealer is charging (stealing) over $1000 for the repair. Has anyone had success with Nissan picking up the charge?

Our car has less than 20k on the odometer. It is garage kept and babied.

I've spent 4 hours today reading about this topic, and maybe I'm just getting dizzy, but I don't think anyone yet has provided a DIY for removing a locked SLU. Everyone says you have to take it to the dealer if you can't get it to unlock.

That's where I'm still confused: obviously the dealer does "something" to swap out the locked part with the new SLU. What is that "something", and why can't we do it?

The procedure is the same for physically removing the SLU whether it has the steering wheel locked or not.
If you can't get the SLU to unlock/make switches AND you can't replace the SLU yourself, then you have to take it to a dealer/mechanic.

Ah, so I was getting dizzy indeed... you can remove the SLU even if it's locked. Thanks SouthArk

My SLU is unlocked, i can move the steering wheel.
What i need to know is, just how do i get my car to start? i removed the fuse hoping it would start, but no go.. then after i removed the fuse i unplugged the battery for a few minutes and still nothing.
So, i don't want to shell out 500 dollars for something that's gonna break down again anyway, and the steering wheel can be moved freely. What do i do to get the Z to start?

add one more
 

Tack on an 09 6MT touring sports edition. And I'm Active Duty stationed in Europe where my extended warranty is no good. Nissan, why you no recall?:shakes head:

Steering wheel column lock issues.
 

So at 48K my steering wheel column lock on my 2009 370Z touring W/sports package goes out while backed into my garage. Fortunately Nissan has a tran's lock release so I got it in the street and onto the flatbed. Took it to Nissan (my Nissan service package comes with free towing, 0 out of pocket expense on the tow) and the steering wheel locks were toast. As luck would have it Nissan had them and 6 hours and $1100 later I was back on the road. I spoke with the service manager and he told me to call Nissan customer affairs and report the issue. I did and two days later they called and told me they would reimburse me $400 and had an email out to the dealership to see how they could help me. Thanks Nissan, the 400 was a nice unexpected surprise and if the dealership throws some free service at me I will be very impressed. Had my doubts but I feel a lot better now.

better than nothing, but still shelling out 700 and headache for the tow. :(

http://s2.postimage.org/3pgkhfnyd/39...31583346_n.jpg

Fudge, This may have happened to me this morning. It flashed the key fob and would not start. when i put the key into the dash and said no key in the orange screen on the left. Had it towed.

One question I could not find after reading through this thread briefly. Have not read all the way through so forgive me if it was covered. When I in neutral getting it on the truck to tow I could move the steering wheel all the way to the right. It was hard without power steering but i did it. Does that mean it could possibly be the key fob not the dreaded steering lock box?

I am waiting for the verdict from Nissan dealership. Hopefully they aren't going to try and rip me off if its something with the fob not the steering lock.

I bought this thing 5 months ago! 46k on it, 2009

I also noted that there was curiosity as to if the cold had something to do with this issue. yesterday was the coldest day thus far since i bought the car at 7 degrees. Depending on what nissan's diagnoses we could conclude cold as a factor

Steering Lock
 

Our early 2011 has exhibited no signs of a problem, but better safe than sorry. Especially, since it is my wife's car and she is often far from home.
I followed your procedure to remove the fuse and found that there was no effect on the car other than there is no steering lock.
There was a little more to getting to the fuse than I anticipated, but I got it out without hurting myself or the car.
Thanks for the information...

Thanks,

rangercarol

Your welcome:hello:

Hope you have a good weekend!!!!!

it seems battery cca might have something to do with it. ive noticed there seems to be some relation to weaker batteries....even for the GTR guys.

The GT-R recall lists excess grease as the reason for failure. Grease gets thicker when it gets colder. Cold probably makes things worse, but, with all the failures that happen in warmer weather, is not likely the root cause.

ughh:icon14::icon14:
i get the heebie jeebies every time i see this thread.. CUT THE BROWN WIRE! AGHHHH!

I'm pretty sure I read this whole thread, and no one has mentioned this yet..

say you take the whole thing apart, like Korrupt did here:

http://www.the370z.com/diy-section-d...ml#post1626521

Couldn't you just manually rotate the gear into the correct position (depressing the two buttons), then either cut the brown wire, pull the fuse, or possibly cut the motor power on the circuit board itself? (I haven't opened mine yet, going to do it tomorrow).

When the gear is in the position where the two switches are pushed in, is the mechanical lock pushed out and into the steering column? The pictures are hard to tell how the locking mechanism works, but he does say in the last picture "This piece has to be taped down or removed so that you can turn the wheel".

I know Fritz has mentioned he has some detailed instructions, but haven't gotten a response from him yet.

If the switches are still working, that should do the trick. If grease has gotten between the contacts, it sounds like you have the ability to cut traces and/or solder jumpers to get the proper open/close status. The proper positions are in one of the multitude of SLU posts (http://www.the370z.com/engine-drivet...heel-lock.html may help locate it, maybe not) or, IIRC, the FSM.

I've never taken one apart, but going by what I've seen and read, the "lock pin" makes the switches when it retracts fully.

Good luck. Take pics and post a DIY when you figure it out.

Thanks,

It's sad I'm somewhat excited to rip this thing apart, out of spite to Nissan and their $1000 quote to fix it. Would probably be more excited not to have to do it at all.

Will be taking some hi-res photos with my SLR.

It may not be the pin that makes the switches, it may be the plastic ring that the motor turns. It's been so long since I read those posts that I can't remember for sure. If you haven't done so already, download the FSM (any of the 2009-2011 should have the same info) LINK. LOTS of good info in there. If you have problems finding the info you need, let me know and I will see what I can do.

Yeah, looking at it, I was thinking the interior section of the gear ring is what hits them.

wtf! how come ive never seen this! +1 to you sir

I haven't gotten to test this yet with my car as it's at the dealer, but pulled the thing apart today (which was a pain in the ***, and I kind of mangled it)

Here are the pics of the internals.

Also, made a video showing how the gear works, buttons get hit, and how to unlock the gear if it's locked in the outer position:

Nissan Steering Lock internals, and Unlocking from Locked Position - YouTube

Also, here are the high-res versions of the pictures. The forum only lets me do up to 600k.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1027199...eat=directlink

Background: the car is at the dealer, the dealer wanted $1000 to fix it, so I went there last night and pulled the part out and brought it home. What's weird is that when I pulled it out, it was already in the unlocked position, and I think the switches were being hit. but maybe not all the way in. Regardless, the temporary plan is to just leave the board/motor assembly out of the steering lock all together. The gear is in the unlocked position, and I'll put the board/motor assembly into something else so I can get the car home.

I will say that when I opened it up, you can see in the pictures that the switches were totally covered in grease.

I use a circuit tester, and tested the switches from the bottom of the board. (See the last picture of the bottom of the board). Going from left to right, and connectors 1-6.

When the switch is all the way out, 1, 3, 4, 6 are all connected.

When the switch is depressed (there's only in, no half-way as theorized by Fritz in other post).
1 and 6 get disconnected and 2,3,4,5 are all connected.

This leads me to believe that ripping the switches off the board completely wouldn't work. Also, I don't think if you were to solder 2,3,4,5 together it would work either, because 1 and 6 would still be connected.

Fantastic job! Repped. :tiphat:


Now if we could just find someone to reverse-engineer the electronics, a plugin module to fake out the BCM could be built. Maybe someone could build/sell them a lot cheaper than the ~$700 Nissan wants. :driving:

Your efforts are commendable but this has already been tried with no success the electrical parts are to fragile to be taken apart screwed around with and put back to together then expected to work.

I just took it to the dealer, plugged in only the board w/ the motor removed (didn't put the rest of the steering wheel lock in at all). Pushed the two buttons while I hit the start button and it started no problem. There doesn't seem to be any negative impact of just hitting the two buttons, starting the car, then releasing them.

Since this is working, I think now that I have it home I will probably put the board back in the steering lock, without the motor, and will make sure the gear is fully extended pushing the buttons in.

If it's this easy, I don't really see any more reason to mess around with soldering the buttons or anything. If I get Nissan to cover the part replacement, I might try screwing around with it then.