Steering wheel lock just failed at 36,000 on the dot in a grocery store parking lot.

Got a rental car, drove home, called the dealership. Told me $280 for the cutaway bolts and $730 for the steering wheel lock.

Read some threads on here, grabbed a hammer, went back to the grocery.

Smacked the part with the hammer a few times and it unlocked (note: kicking it didn't work, and I had to give it a pretty good smack with the hammer). Popped the hood, pulled the plastic **** off, yanked the fuse box and pulled the fuse. Put everything back together, shut it off, started back up just fine (whirrr of the lock working notably absent).

Taking the rental car back tomorrow annoyed but without the expensive tow and repair thanks the forum. :tup:

Note that there are two fuse boxes next to the battery. The steering wheel lock fuse is in the larger one that is more difficult to get to, you have to pull it up to get the cover off and get to the fuses. I had to remove the battery cover, the plastic around the battery cover, and the plastic near the windshield. They just have some little snap-ins to hold them on, so not really that difficult. The fuse itself just pulls straight out.

Amazing that Nissan doesn't just issue a recall to pull the fuse on the existing models with the lock.

Whatever.

Good Point, and yeah, taking the battery cover off was how I did mine. Mine went out during a trip 100 miles away from my house; luckily with a little anger and a pair of pliers, the problem was solved.

The important bit is pull. the. fuse. I kicked the **** out of it and nothing. I gave it some love taps with the hammer and nothing. I felt so lucky when I gave it a good smack and it disengaged, and knew to yank that fuse. That piece of **** will cost you $1000 if it won't disengage. I won't be trading for another Nissan. The part is a defective design and expensive to replace and they won't give an inch.

It's easy - there's a huge thread in the DIY section on this topic. Been there for months, and it contains step-by-step instructions (even some pictures): Full thread, Instructions (quoted below)

I'm glad I could help you save money:tiphat:

Our 2010 40th anniversary failed last nite on my wife after work @1:30 am in a bad part of town 40 mi away. Car only has 22k mi and I was pissed. I have cars with up to 185k with no issues so a relatively new car should not have any. Anyways jumped on the forum did a little research. Got the z to get power by hitting the silver box under the steering column. Drove it home and just pulled the 48 fuse this morning. Glad I didn't have to deal with the damn dealership.

I'm glad everything worked out well for you and your wife

I don't need any money for my research but Ill take REP points instead :tiphat:

What a bunch of crap.

09' 370z. Got home today (12/31/12), pulled into the driveway, shut her off. Wife poked her head out of the garage and told me she needed to get her car out because she unexpectedly needed to go into work and that I needed to move my car. Tried to start it up, no go literally seconds after it just worked before. Rage ensues. I call my dealership (I'm 3 months out of warranty but only have 17k miles on it) and Nissan consumer affairs and they basically tell me to politely eff off since I'm out of warranty.

I come on the internet, see that this is a widespread issue, and call Nissan Consumer Affairs back telling them I know exactly what the problem is and that it's a joke this hasn't been recalled. They tell me that it's possible they could maybe help me out cost wise for getting the part replaced, but I'd need to pay to get it towed to a dealership and possibly pay for the diagnosis despite knowing exactly what the problem is.

Instead, I decide to hit it with a hammer (worked, yay!) and cut the stupid brown wire. Never thought I'd fix a $500+ repair problem on my car by hitting it with a hammer and cutting wires, but hey, for once I'm not going to complain.

Thanks internet, as usual you are infinitely more useful than useless customer service and repair from corporations.

P.S. Government recall complaint issued as well.

P.P.S. If this is any indication of the level of quality and customer service provided by Nissan for known issues, it will be my last. I love my car, but this is complete and total crap.

o9 48,000 12/30/12
cut the brown wire no probs since then

Awesome bro!! Good to hear that hitting it unseize it and she gave you a 2nd chance before coming out of pocket. I believe the other option would have been to pull the fuse once on in acc mode. Don’t quote me on that.

:confused: Why are people cutting the brown wire instead of just removing the fuse? I don't get it...

Baer383's fix (removing the fuse) is super easy and non-permanent...

:iagree:

Pulling the fuse is pretty easy, but still not as easy as snipping the wire. If you have no reason to ever reactivate the SLU, why not snip the wire? It's out of sight and can be repaired if necessary (although that's a job I wouldn't want to do in such cramped quarters). Personally, I don't like taking such drastic measures as cutting wires on a new car so I pulled the fuse, but that's just me.

Cutting the wire is not the best fix, IMNSHO, but I find it difficult to argue with success.

Glad you got it fixed, but as my son taught me with ATT customer service, if you do not like the person who answer call again, I did this with Nissan with my front bumper, because the dealer screwed holes into it, thou it took 11 months to get the bumper replaced. Now I have to work on the lousy paint they used.

Mine failed in the unlocked position on 12/24/12. It is a 09 RevA with 29000 miles. I luckily still have the bumper to bumper warranty and the dealer said its covered under it and they will pay for the tow.

:tup:

My steering lock never failed and is probably still good as new (for now), but I pulled the fuse as a preventative measure. No issues, no worries and if I ever want a steering lock, I will wait for the recall (eventually) that will replace it N/C...

Mine failed for the 3rd and last time at 22,500 miles. Once I got it started by moving the steering column aggressively up and down, I drove it to my Nissan Dealer which I have a great rapport with. I'm one of the lucky ones as the part was still under warranty. Would have cost $1,500 to fix. Yikes! Ridiculous why this was not a recall by Nissan. My guess it's because of the low number (comparatively) of Zs made in '09 and '10. If it was an Altima, it probably would have been recalled. I guess they also figure that us Z owners have lots of money...:shakes head:

So I haven't gotten it towed yet but do you think because I have an aftermarket exhaust they will try and void the warranty even though the exhaust has nothing to do with the part that failed? Did you have anything aftermarket?

Shouldn't be an issue. If the dealer gives you any static, find another dealer (or call Nissan and ask them to explain it to the dealer).

Don't know if this helps anyone, but I just had my steering lock fail at around 41,200 miles, I have the extended warranty bought at purchase of the car, and after some fighting it they did cover all the labor and parts. Granted, I was stranded at work and had to bum rides for a few days.

No extended warranty for me. 445,000 miles. Just filed complaint with NHTSA. The Maxima is having this problem also according to my dealer.

445,000miles on a Z? My Gawd!!! :) :happydance:

LOL! Probably he mis-typed an extra 0.:icon17:

That's what I was thinking b/c he is TT

2009 370Z - 59k Miles

I was told that Altimas and Maximal are having the issue too

HuH:icon14:

Yes they are:hello:

2011 Roadster. ~13k Miles. Don't know what type of lock i had. Got it replaced with a Rev. D under warranty.

Highsider Hallo from Stuttgart! Sorry about the failure. Have you tried one of the fixes from the site here that isolate the system. This is only the second 2011 Z on this site that has reported a failure.

Cheers,
Dave

No. I didn't know about the Problem so i had no idea about possible fixes. It all hapended a Month ago, got the Car back in the mean time. Btw: My lock jammed in the unlocked position. Still wouldn't let me start the Car.

That's weird because the fixes involve disabling the steering lock (basically just like having it jam in unlock) and drive the cars daily no problems :ugh2:

Mine did the same. What is happening to yours is that it's not fully unlocked. There are 2 switches that the locking bolt have to come in contact with to let your car know the steering wheel isn't locked. It can be unlocked and free moving and still not trigger these switches.

'09 370z 6mt touring with sport. Steering locking unit RIP at 41K miles. Dealership quoted me $1,200. Going to take my luck with Nissan North America on refunding me. Any of you have any luck getting Nissan to fork out a refund?

A few ppl have reported getting Nissan to absorb some of the cost, but not many and not much.

Just a reminder, please post to http://www.the370z.com/exterior-inte...se-sticky.html if you have had a steering lock failure.

Done, thanks. Also reported it to safercar.gov.

Year: 2010

Model: Touring

Transmission: 7AT

Miles: 19,xxx

Lock Revision:

City: Houston

State: Texas

Province:

Region:

Country: USA

Towed: Yes

Did You Disable SLU? No

Downtime 3-5 days. (Don't really remember. But I believe 3 days above. But got a loaner car from them and covered by Nissan.)

the dreaded steering lock problem
 

Well I never knew our car had this problem. My steering wheel lock finally gave out. 25599 mileage. I panic cause my windows was down I do street parking. So I had it towed right away to stealership. Cost me 1038 to get part and labor. Wat sucks is I work so hard during the holidays to earn extra money but it all went into my car now. So sad. I feel like selling my car I dont like having problems with my cars this low of a mileage. 2009 370z. Well yup just wanted to share my story on how stealership got me. Still dont understand why there is no recall.