Portlis

So, I own a 2009 370z that I bought new in 08'. In 2012, my steering lock failed for the first time. I fixed it by hitting it with a hammer and cutting the brown wire like people around here recommended. Problem solved. In 2013, I brought it in for regularly scheduled maintenance and by then they told me that there had been a recall on their faulty piece of crap steering locks, so they insisted on replacing it. Like the fool I was, I agreed to let them do it. Hey, they must have fixed the problem, right? I should have known.

And yes, before I go any further, in hindsight I never should have trusted that Nissan fixed the problem. I should have just pulled the stupid fuse and been done with it, but I didn't.

Fast forward to a month ago, the steering lock failed on me again. What the hell Nissan. Only this time, I couldn't fix it by beating on it or clipping wires. I tried everything to fix it, all of the tips and tricks, but no matter what I did it was completely locked. I couldn't get the ignition to cycle to acc or on.

As a last resort, I bought the steering lock bypass kit off of ebay (I had some coupon codes which made the price better) that was linked on here. THANK YOU SO MUCH to the guy who linked this bypass kit and explained that it might help those of us who couldn't even get into ACC mode. The bypass kit worked like a charm. Once I knew what I was doing, it literally took 5 minutes for me to swap out the part and my car worked again. The mother****ing dealer wanted to charge me an insane amount of money to fix it, and $75 bucks and 5 minutes I was able to take care of it on my own. Your failed parts were strike 1 Nissan. Providing zero customer service and zero help for your customers problems and trying to rake them over for even more when this part is available is strike 2. For anyone in my situation, just buy the bypass kit and save yourself the time and money.

So all is well now, right? Wrong. Now my keyfobs don't work because I "replaced" the steering lock. Apparently this is an anti-theft "feature" according to Nissan. I can only manually lock and unlock my doors with my actual key and the car will only start with the fob in the fobgina. I figured this would be a simple solution, right? Nope, wrong again. Apparently I need to bring this to a Nissan dealership to get them to reprogram my fobs. Fine, I figured, a little hassle isn't the end of the world. So I call them and they tell me to just bring in proof of ownership, my 2 fobs, and I'll be good to go. They never mentioned any cost over the phone. When I get there, they tell me it will take about an hour and will cost $119.99. What the actual **** Nissan? $120 to simply reprogram my fobs? BECAUSE YOUR MOTHER****ING PARTS KEEP FAILING, and I had to take it upon myself to fix the problem on my own with my time and money? Sorry, this is strike 3.

Lets recap: Nissan makes vehicles with faulty parts, then issues a recall for said faulty parts. Recalled parts continue to fail, and now Nissan doesn't give a $**t and refuses to put out a recall for the parts that continue to fail. Despite this, Nissan has essentially admitted that this is such a widespread problem that they themselves have created a part to bypass the faulty part. How insane is that? Nissan then tries to charge an arm and a leg to fix their faulty crap which can be fixed on your own with $75, a few minutes of time, and a tiny bit of knowhow - and of course they would never suggest this route because that would actually save their "customers" money even though the $75 part is THEIR part! And, as icing on the cake, your fobs won't work because of THEIR faulty crap that they won't stand behind and they're trying to rape us for another $120 to fix a problem that we never should have had to begin with AFTER already spending $75 that I shouldn't have had to spend in the first place? Yup, that's about it.

I'm done. I've loved my Z, but I will never own another Nissan vehicle again if this is how Nissan handles their business and treats their customers. I'm not asking for money and I'm not asking for parts. I literally just need a few minutes of their time to fix a problem that their own faulty crap caused, and I wasn't even the one who insisted on having the recalled part replaced in the first place, they were! What an absolute ****show. In my entire 38 years of life I've never dealt with another product or company that showed this little concern for their customers, offered ZERO help whatsoever for problems that their faulty products have caused, and seemed to almost have disdain for you when you call them and ask for help. What a god damn joke. If a half hour of labor (and zero material cost) is too much to spare to help out a customer that needs assistance because THEIR products have failed, then that's not a company I'm interested in doing business with any longer.

Sorry, just had to rant. And I wanted to share the success story with the bypass kit for anyone else in my situation.

Anyone know of a way to reprogram my keyfobs on my own, or am I going to need to use my fobgina for however many more years I own my Z? I refuse to give those bastards a single cent of my money to reprogram them.