I was installing a new head unit in my 2004.5 350Z yesterday, and made a bonehead move. After connecting the wiring adapter, I left the wires exposed (ie, not electrical taped) and plugged into the wiring harness to make sure I wired everything correctly. I turn the car on, and everything is wired up right. I go to turn off the car, and watched as one of the exposed wires came into contact with the metal on the side of the new stereo. Instantly the stereo turns off. Obviously not taping up the wires was stupid on my part, and I'm still pissed at myself.

Immediately afterward, I plug the factory radio back in and notice it doesn't work, and neither does the tach, speedometer, vdc button, seat heater buttons, etc. My first thought is hopefully I just blew a fuse. I went through every fuse one by one and found that the mirror fuse in the driver's side kickpanel was blown. I hope it would fix everything, but it didn't. Now the stereo works, but I have the same problem with the speedo, tach, vdc button, and seat heater buttons. Oh, and the HVAC system isn't coming on either. I took the car for a spin, and while the odometer shows the current mileage, it isn't adding the new mileage. The trip odometer shows up as 0.0 and won't move at all.

So at this point I'm pretty frustrated and the next step is likely to take the car to the shop, but I wanted to see if anyone here had any ideas first. I checked every fuse in both the kickpanel fuse box and the battery compartment fuse box. The only blown fuse was for the mirror, and I replaced it. Any ideas?

Thanks for your help!

 

did you plug in the white box behind the ac controls?

 

Yes, I did. I hooked everything back up and still have the problem

 

Did you check both fuse boxes in the battery compartment? Iirc there is one directly under the battery cover and there is another one a little more hidden in that same compartment.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm going to try to track down the second fuse box in the battery compartment. Hopefully there's one blown in there...

 

So I found a blown 20A fuse labeled RR Def in the second (hidden) fuse box in the battery compartment. Heading out to get a replacement, hopefully that's the issue but not getting my hopes up here...

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm going to try to track down the second fuse box in the battery compartment. Hopefully there's one blown in there...

 

I did the same when installing my head unit . Had a blown fuse under the driver kick panel

 

Glad to know I'm not the only one to ever do this! Unfortunately, I replaced the blown rr def fuse in the hidden fuse box in the battery compartment and the blown mirror fuse in the kick panel. Still no speedo, tach, etc. Ironically, the stereo works just fine!

 

What's weird is the things that aren't working seem to be fairly unrelated.

*Speedometer
*Tachometer
*Odometer (doesn't count new mileage)
*Trip odometer (stays at 0.0)
*VDC (the light doesn't go on when I press the button)
*Seat heaters (light doesn't come on when I turn them on)
*HVAC system won't turn on (I can turn the system to on but it does nothing

When looking at the instrument cluster, there are no warning lights on. Is there a component I could have shorted out that controls everything above?

 

Yes, the ECU and the BCM. Have the car scanned with a CONSULT scanner to verify that the computers are working properly.

 

Thanks for everyone's help. After one last look at the kick panel fuse box, I found one fuse that I must have missed that was blown. Everything is back to working normally - definitely a huge relief

 

Had the same problem, this thread saved me from buying a ac amp, thank you

 

Which fuse was the one you replaced by the kicker panel?

 

i had the same problem when i got a pioneer double din installed in my 06 350z... tach and speedo stopped working and all the lights came on ( seatbelt, tpms, slip ,brake, tcs etc) and the gas tank and temprature needle dropped to zero.
i found out that when i put everything back together after the headunit install i forgot one connection for the white box with the ribbon cable. as soon as i plugged everything together it fixed all my problems. but as soon as i fixed everything my service engine light came on... when i checked for the codes it gave me ' fuel level sensor A circuit low' it was just because of the sudden loss of power to all the guages.. erased that code and it never came back on..