As others have noted, it's a five minute job _if you are confidant_. If you are a bit timid about messing up a customer's car doing a procedure that is not in the manual, up to fifteen minutes. Some shops have a one hour minimum, but it's not a one hour job. Personally, I don't have a problem paying a $50-60 minimum - as long as my problem is fixed.

I'm a bit surprised that they have not at least heard of the yank-the-fuse fix. Small shop?

Medium sized Nissan franchise but they don't sell many "exotic" cars, like Z's and absolutely no GT-R's here---semi-rural Western Pennsylvania. They really drew a blank and had to read my print outs of forum postings to figure out the fuse location, etc. Werent even aware of the steering lock failure phenomenon. Nice guys though. Hopefully, my corner garage buddy will yank it tomorrow in exchange for a lunch with him at Appleby's!

Nissan was going to remove the fuse from the fuse box located under the hood in the battery compartment on the driver's side. They showed me two black fuse boxes under there, and they claim the steering lock fuse is in the fuse box to the left of the battery (wheel side). Does this sound like they know what they're doing or is the fuse box at another location. They said the other fuse box in that battery compartment did not contain the steering lock fuse., That fuse box was easy to access. To get into the fuse box where they say the steering lock fuse is located, they say they have to remove a plastic framing piece that sort of frames in the battery cover. If they didn't have to remove that whole piece to get to the fuse box, it would only take a few minutes. Do they know what the heck they are talking about? My corner mechanic is following my guidance and hoping to find the fuse in that hard to get to fuse box.

That's it. It's called IPDM-E/R in the service manuals. Fuse is on the bottom left when you get the cover off. Check the cover for a diagram showing each fuse and look for "Steering Lock"

Yes, the frame around the battery cover has to be removed. See one of the DIYs on this site for more info. It's an easy job.

Edit: "on the driver's side" - I'm assuming you meant passenger (right) side.

Yes, thank you and thank you for your "edit." I did mean passenger side.

There's a Technical Service Bulletin out on this issue, its NTB12-041 dated April 27, 2012 that lists the Nissan vehicles affected by this problem and provides instruction for the Tech to reprogram the BCM.

Pardon my ignorance but what's BCM and what does that have to do with the removal of the steering lock fuse?

BCM = Body Control Module

and yeah, explain the details of the TSB....

Yes, please explain details

With any luck I'll talk to my service Rep. today about the TSB.

Below is a reference to this TSB which has something to do with the battery in an Altima??? Could there be an error in the number?

Re: 2011 Altima needs to be powered down and then back up

Postby ZZAltima » Sun Oct 14, 2012 11:47 am
I followed up on this. It turns out that this is a common problem. There is a Nissan Technical Service Bullitin for this. It is TSB-NTB12-041.

FYI another way this problem shows up is that the engine refuses to turn off! Only way to turn it off is to pull the fuel pump fuse. All of us better learn the location of the fuel pump fuse!

I haven't been able to find the complete text of NTB12-041, but it appears to be about a BCM firmware problem and has nothing to do with the steering lock.

:shakes head: now I am disappointed I was hoping to go on my comp today finally to look at the TSB but seeing all the OP's posts I don't even think I need to now.......

Horray! Just got back from my buddy, the corner mechanic's, garage. He removed my steering lock fuse in 12 minutes flat and did so gratuitously---also too busy to let me take him to Applebee's for lunch! My dealership was making such a big (translates expensive) deal out this---saying an hour shop time with a lot of disassembly involved. I stood and watched my firend do it---nothing to it, just as stated on this forum. Thank goodness for this forum!

:tup: this forum is awesome and can help owners out in so many ways! Glad you got it taken care of before the problem happened.

I too am glad to hear about preemptive solutions. Good job.

I do sort of feel this subject is like talking about the Nigerian scam, only to have people look at you as this is news to them.