Hey Peeps!

Alright so some of you know my 350z Track Edition had a computer problem a few weeks back.

The problem is seen as the following:

All the indicator lights in the instrument panel lit up.

Service, ABS, VDC, Brake, Slip.....

Physically this means I have NO Anti Lock Brakes, The Vehicle Dymanic Control is D I S E N G A G E D.

Also I have Intermittent Speedo, and with that goes all distance/fuel information Odometer and such....

The only "really" bad thing about the car being in this state is sometimes when you are braking (normally) you can feel the Anti Lock Brakes starting to kick in.... somewhat interesting sensation.

This problem started up after 2500 miles of hard core car thrashing, and a couple days before the problem arrived, I was in the torrential rai (cats & dogs/buckets of water) doing 0-100 sprints and full braking, and spinning the car in circles on the I-5 in Southern Cali at 3:00AM (there was no one/nothing out there).

This was a lot of fun, the car has done everything and more than I have asked or more importantly what I had expected.

Anyhow, this may have contributed to the problem due to another physical finding....

On the underside of the hood, passenger side, there is nice solid splash of dirt/mud. The whole area from the undercarriage up to the hood shows the path of the dirt/mud.

I figured some sensor got drenched or freaked out and wanted to believe this problem would be "easily" fixed...

Not the case...

My car has been worked on by the dealer for 3 days now. The interior of the car from the center **** console up through the stereo/nav in the dash has been removed and they have ALL THE WIRES out, extended, and attached to diagnostic equipment.

Our friends in Japan are having them run through a series of tests, reporting the results, 1 at a time in order to find the problem. They have complete 4-5 "major" tests and have not found anything they can use as of yet.

After all the car has been through, I was willing to accept a hiccup from the first batch of cars, however this is not going to be a hiccup and I am now expecting the worst from this event.

Whatchya think about this?

Thanks all

 

See Lemon Laws:

https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....ighlight=lemon

 

Hopefully it won't come to that...

I was planning on making a couple calls to Nissan Consumer Affairs just to see what they think at this moment.

The Dealership was able to give me a pretty good deal on a rental, I got a Ford F150, Triton V-8 for 39 bux a day.

This is a great deal, and trust me... I'll be using this truck to it's fullest.

Thanks for the note, I'll be keeping you guys updated!

Joe

 

Any new updates?

 

This has happened to my 03 350z twice. The first time was during some spirited driving. The second time was during my morning commute. Both times the car seemed fine, and was fine after I turned off the car and restarted it.

 

Wow your dealer is makeing you pay for a loaner car? Everytime I needed work done, they just let me have one from their lot.

 

I have this exact same problem with my '04 Touring with 1500 miles on it. I really dread taking it in and having the dealer rip the dash out of my brand new car - I just know it would end up with tons of rattles and missing pieces.

Does anyone know what the fix for this is? I dont have any speedometer issues, just all the lights come on after ~15 minutes of driving and it is turning off the VDC etc.

Thanks for any help!
Greg

 

(Greg Also PMd me which brough me back to the board)


Alright. Here is the scoop, and hello to any and all of you should you remember me from before.

Here is exactly what happened with my car.

As I had mentioned, I had all the lights come on in the dash, and the vehicle had no ABS and no VDC.

Unfortunately I made a huge mistake assuming (yea.. yea.. I know) that this couldn't possibly be a major problem, and wanting to believe it must have been a simple computer glitch needing resetting.

The dealer checked it out, got a ton of error codes, and agreed it had to be a "glitch".

The car was scheduled for a 10K audio and other gadgets make over with a great shop with very little time on its hands. They only take on 1 "show car" project at a time, and they even put another car on hold for me (an incredible MR2).

So dropped the car off, and 3 weeks later took the car back to the dealer, and they looked at it for about a week.

They had no idea what was wrong, but the computer was spewing out just about every error code it could produce, and my favorite was codes that were not usable!

Then they blamed the audio system and the grounding kit and last but not least the audio system installers.

after they opened the dash (scratching it and my stereo system) they claimed they found a wire, which is the speedometer lead nearly shred to a hair and "open" and they claim it shorted out the computer.

This was plain and simply not true, I fought them on this based on the experience and reputation of the shop, plus the fact I was there during a lot of the work, and I personally know the owner and his crew. top notch and down right good people.

They have about as much training on top of the experience as any one can get. They are authorized dealers for prestigious vendors and have a gallery of cars ranging from your average car to ultra exotic with a spotless track record with the public to boot.

They would not work on the car any further after nearly 2 weeks of testing and trying things until the "3rd party equipment" was removed from the vehicle.

With this they said I was lucky they weren't revoking my warranty. So we disconnected everything from the car, and removed what was easily accessible.

As some of you know, the "Z" has a network of computers. They ended up replacing a couple computers, and after additional testing replaced the same one again.

They "fixed" the shredded Speedo wiring (the worst soldering job ever seen by man in the 21st century) and then they gave the car back, just before 31 days were up.

I had continued problems with the car, and they said I would have to completely remove the 3rd party equipment before they would continue.

So yes, I took it all out, and gave it up.

They "fixed" my car, but it continued to have minor problems and as the dealer left my car in "warranty questionable" state, it's been hard to get things taken care of.

All dealers in southern California are a joke when it comes to service.

That is except for Performance Nissan in Duarte. Great bunch of people. I had the dreaded "3rd gear grind" problem pop up in my car a couple weeks back, I called all the dealers, and all I got was the run around and "leave it with us for a couple days, we'll look at it and go from there" More on this later.

As far as your concerns about rattles and such is valid. Z's are anything but "quiet" and there is at least 1 TSB for noise in the dash (and that's for people who haven't done anything to their cars).

 

I have an 03 Z that I bought back in May. Around July it started having the service engine light come on and the engine would go in "safe mode". That means you can't do more than 1.5k rpm on the engine even at full throttle. Took it in and got a report from the tech similar to alpines. The computer was spewing out tons of meaningless error codes. After about 2 weeks at the dealer they decided that I had a bad ECU (computer), and it had to be replaced. After 2 more weeks waiting for a part the car was fixed and has been fine since. At the time the dealer said ECU malfunctions were a known problem and that there probably would be a recall. BTW, there have been zero mods on the car.

 

How interesting that they mentioned it was a known problem, I don't suppose you have any TSB information on that do you?

My car didn't end up in full safe mode, as I was able to do all RPM.

Also this did not involved my ECU (at least to my knowledge and written report).

This had to do with the other computers responsible for their various tasks and their ability, or lack there of to communicate with one another properly.

BTW, I had killer video, sound and navigation version 1 installed in January '03 and removed in february '03 . I will have something better than stock again shortly. Killer video sound and navigation version 2 is on order, due in end of Februrary and should be on the road mid March.

 

Alpine, which dealers have you gone to and had this bad experience with?

 

This particular "bad experience" is now a year old. So there isn't much point on fingering the dealer involved at that time.

Also then, the bad experience wasn't nearly as much the dealer as it was Nissan.

1 Year ago today, I think the 350z had about 3 months on the available market. I am not a Z factoid(er) so I don't know how many were out there, or when they were ACTUALLY available or what anyone knew about them technically.

When I got the car, and had the grease track problem, that was also an unknown, so It doesn't surprise me too much that they didn't know what they were doing at the time.

I had resolved that one on my own for a period of time, but it eventually came back and I did have it replaced under warranty.

I was also accepting of the fact that this was a first year production vehicle, designed from the ground up, and not an improvement on the prior years Altima. There is going to be "some" problems.....

After all was said and done, and just short of 31 days in the shop I got my car back, and NNA offered me $300.00 off any products and services, which I never took.

I just didn't care for NNA approach to this and the fact that the dealer essentially tried to help me, and did but at the expense of my integrity and relationship with my audio shop who in no way could have done anything to create this problem.

The real concern as far as dealers goes came when I got the 3rd gear grind when every dealer I called, after researching the problem on the net, told me there is NO PROBLEM with the transmissions in the "Z's".

They all said make an appointment, gives us a couple days, and we'll see where it goes from there.

If in fact there was no known problem, then I could see that approach. If they didn't personally know about it, then I could see that approach. But each time I mentioned I am member of the internet community and there are few dozen posts, on half a dozen respectable "Z" sites from coast to coast with valid information about the problem, and then I ended up with actual dealers/dates/services provided (thank you to everyone who sent me their information) and all they would say is "you never know about what you see and hear on the internet" which of course is true, but not to consider it, and just blow it off isn't right.

Not one of them showed any sense of concern other than to get off the phone and get onto the next thing on their list.

I'm busy, we're all busy, and I wasn't going to let my car sit around for a day or two while they thought about doing something about it after they changed oil and spark plus all day long on other cars.

The bottom line it's warranty work, I have a warranty, the dealer gets paid to do warranty work, maybe not as much, but they get paid to do that work. What's wrong with expecting service along with that warranty?