ATTENTION!! 2009-2010 owners with steering lock/wont start issues

DEpointfive0

This is a direct quote from me in another thread:
I think I have a case against Nissan - Steering lock fuse

From my understanding it's not necessarily a safety issue... Those get more attention because of the Fight Club formula, which IS true, and the way recalls are coordinated.

"A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60MPH, the rear differential locks up...
The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside...
Now... Should we initiate a recall?
Take the number of vehicles in the field (A)
Multiply it by the probable rate of failure(B)
Then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement (C) [in our case, cost of replacing the steering lock]
(A) times (B) times (C) equals (X) A*B*C=X
If "X" is LESS than the cost of a recall, we don't do one


Now, everyone pulling their steering locks BEFORE their warranty is up is ruining your stats... That's why mine is firmly in place


And YES I agree, if you have one, it WILL eventually fail... But if you're disabling it, or you drove a lot and didn't buy a warranty or the opposite, you drove your car very little and 3 years came up before it failed, you're falling outside where they care and need to worry about you.


ALSO... You most likely won't be able to start a recall... You might be able to start a class action lawsuit by those who were out of warranty and had to pay out of pocket, but all of a sudden, that number becomes really low... And class action is out of the question....



Best bet... For those who get f'd, call Nissan's Ombudsman... Tell them look, this is BS, it was recalled on the GTR, why not this car, it's EXACTLY the same and this is more a driver's DD car... See what happens
The only reason IMO they DID a recall for the GTR is that it's twice the price, and you don't want to piss customers off who paid 100k for a car


New info!!!
I have seen 2 members on the forum that recently stated that Nissan paid them back and all they had to do was either send an email or make a call!!!

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jgvill

Hey guys, Just fyi, if you decide to do the 'cutting the brown wire' fix, you could do it without pulling out the white thing from the harness which is a big pita. I did mine by just finding the brown wire and cutting it. Done and done ;-)

fighterinsnat

I got nissan to swap my steering column lock with a working one to get the car started. Can I pull the fuse now? I couldn't get it to start before because I guess the lock was enabled.

cheshirecat

turn the car on to acc so that you can hear the lock disengage. once it does (test the wheel by wiggling it), pull the fuse. turn the car back off and uninstall the steering lock if they're just letting you borrow it.

be sure to test it before uninstalling the lock.

SouthArk370Z

I don't remember anyone trying it but I don't think the car will start without a SLU wired in. There are two microswitches that need to be in the correct position and some electronics that "handshake" with the BCM/ECM. It doesn't have to be bolted in place, but it does need to be plugged in.

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bcr8ive

Mine went out last October at the cost of $1100.00...just 2000 miles out of warranty. Steering wheel controls went out prior to that...brakes have squeaked for months...Nissan turned it's head to all of these issues while the car was still under warranty. Needles to say I traded the POS last Friday for a 2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara...
Kiss my *** Nissan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Huan'z

U got them buddy!!


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daisuke149

Chris Spohn took his out in his endeavor for weight savings.

SouthArk370Z

Cool. Thanks for the correction.

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asdfsammich

Makes sense. Once the fuse, or lock, is deleted, the need for that nested handshake gets deleted with it.


Phone Tapatalk *nix ...

ThreeSevenTee

Well I'll be damned. Long story short: the 'bang on the steering lock until it disengages' technique actually works (or at least it did for me!).

Long story long:
My 2009 Z (only 12500 miles) has been stuck in my garage for the last 3 months since the steering wheel lock failed. I had been about to park it for the winter anyway (Calgary isn't very Z-friendly in winter), so I had time to ponder what to do about it. The car was about 7 months out of warranty when it failed and getting it out of that tight garage onto a flatbed in an icy alley would be a nightmare - so I wasn't in a great rush to go that way. I'm also an engineer with incurable DIY syndrome so I was convinced I could fix it myself. Tonight I decided I was going to open up the steering lock and see if I could fully disengage the locking pin, get the car started, and then pull the fuse as suggested earlier in the thread. But before I went out to start working on it I took one last read through this thread and looked again at the report(s) about kicking the crap out of the steering wheel lock until it let go. I have to admit I thought the chances of this working would be almost nil - and I wasn't too crazy about potentially reducing my already-low chances of getting a warranty repair. But I have some non-marring mallets and thought I'd give it a shot (so to speak). I raised the steering wheel as far as I could, felt around to make sure I was going to hit the lock assembly and not the thin cowling nearby, and starting whacking it with a fairly soft white rubber mallet while depressing the clutch and pressing the start button repeatedly. Went on like that for about a minute, but no joy. So I switched to a harder-face dead-blow mallet (16oz, I think) and tried again - banging firmly but certainly not wailing on the lock assembly. About 10 seconds in, the dash lights up and the car roars to life. Neighbors probably wondered what the heck all the commotion after that was about - last time anybody heard me making noise like that was when the Flames won the Stanley cup over 20 years ago . I pulled the lock fuse while the car was running (I had opened that up a couple of months ago) and shut the car off. Crossed my fingers, pressed Start again, and the Z started like a charm (and no delay).

So it's just another data point, but I hope a few more people give this (literally) brute-force approach a try before shelling out $1000-$1500 for an infuriating repair. Just don't hit the thing so hard you cause damage and maybe invalidate any coverage you might qualify for.

P.S. Here's a little additional data to eventually help determine if this is a cure-all or a fluke (or maybe it just works for a particular mode of failure). The amber 'lock' warning indicator had started to come on intermittently during the week or two preceding the lock failure - I thought it was probably a fob 'weak battery' warning or something like that and foolishly ignored it. After parking in the garage one evening and noticing that the 'lock' light stayed on after I shut the car off, I tried to restart the car - but the 'lock' light just stayed on and that was the end of it: the car still recognized the fob for door lock / unlock but pushing Start did nothing (stayed on LOCK: no ACC, nothing...). I discovered I could lower the windows, but not raise them (ended up open for 3 months). I eventually gave up trying to start the car after going through every permutation of clutch / gear / wheel turning / fob inserting / button pressing I could dream up. One interesting point is that I was still able to turn the steering wheel when the lock failed: so maybe the locking pin was in an 'almost open' position and just needed a little extra agitation to finish opening up and engage the 'open switch'? Seems that a failed lock mechanism might also drain the battery fairly quickly - about 7 days after the lock failed, the battery was totally flat. I kept a maintenance charger on the battery after that to avoid damage.

SurfDog

Sweet after action report, and nice job!

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Sh0velMan

Mine failed yesterday.

Beating on it didn't do anything for me.

I posted photos of my solution here: http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-g...ml#post2182326

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Ziggyman

Can anyone tell me if a June 2011 build would still have this issue. I've read the threads and all I could find was something about mid 2011 on being ok.

Thanks!

SouthArk370Z

IIRC, the change happened in March, but I'm not 100% sure. Stick your head under the dash and look - if it's there it'll be easy to see (check one of the DIYs for pics). Or listen for the whirring sound of the motor - it's pretty loud.

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