Yeah if your Vin is on the recall go for it. Mine wasn't and it was a nightmare. Found an entire steering column for sell online for 70$ with a known good Lock, Pulled it off and slapped it on my car and pulled the fuse, was good to go!

As a Z owner it was time to move onto other problems... ugh yey.... -.-

I looked under the dash today. It appears that the dealer installed a Rev. E steering lock unit, and my harness is still in place and connected to it. The mechanic was probably clueless and just disconnected the harness from the old lock unit and then plugged it back in on the new one. Well at least I don't need to pull the fuse.

I haven't heard of a Rev E before. You sure that not a typo and you meant Rev D? Got a pic?

i think i did see a RevE at one point.. i maybe mistaken..

but its da same dogdamn silly design. its going to break probably.

given said dat, my RevB and C are still working fine. :icon17:


:ugh2:

I'm sure my Rev D still works fine. It just hasn't been plugged in for the last 6 years :)

Hey guys, just wanted to remind everyone to make sure you pull the fuse for the steering lock even if you had it repaired under the recall. I had mine changed out in March 2013 and it just went out and left me stranded. It costed almost 1200 bucks to fix plus getting it towed to the dealership.

I called Nissan Corporate and opened a case with them for a reimbursement since this unit should not be going bad this quickly if it was replaced under the recall and they pretty much said there is nothing they are going to do about since it was already replaced under recall once.

Don't take the chance, just pull the fuse.

I know this is an old forum but hopefully you guys can help me out. So I followed the instructions and pulled the fuse out but it didn't fix the issue, takes multiple times and a random number of tries to get it to start. Is it possible that some sort of the damage has happened that by simply pulling out the fuse won't fix it?

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If the engine is spinning over (starter activating), then the ESCL is not the problem.

I agree with SouthArk ... sounds like the ESCL is not the problem. Were you having any issues like this before pulling the fuse?

At the risk of being overly rude, an engine needs 3 things to start; air, spark and fuel. If you are sure you have fuel (the gas gauge is just an approximation), then all you are missing is spark. Crank and no start is usually crank sensor. Ours are in a location that is not too prone to getting dirty from road crap, however, a leaking CSC can raise havoc with it. Since your car will start eventually, you might have a fuel issue. Check and make sure the fuel pump hasn't fallen off inside the tank.


GL :tiphat:

Pulling the fuse did absolutely nothing for me as well, my car still has the lock frozen about 90% of the mornings that I get in and I have to bang on it to get the car started daily

Pulling the fuse does work, if you pull the fuse after starting the car and you pull the right one. It's up by the battery, kinda buried. Some people cut the brown wire going to the steering lock. There is a thread in the DIY section that has pictures. :tiphat:

Are you sure you got the right fuse? If you hear a whirring noise from the ESCL when you press the start button, you pulled the wrong one.

Drove into work. Flood warning. Hoping not to get drowned car lol

For probably the tenth time in the past ten pages of this thread, yes I pulled the right fuse - and no it did not work.

It sounds like the locking pin is not fully retracted. Put the fuse back in, cycle the ESCL (let it lock and then unlock), remove fuse again.

Edit: It might help to give the ESCL a few whacks right before pulling fuse

But did you really pull the right fuse?

Tried that a few times as well, it drives me insane lol. In the winter it seemed like it was each night that hit 30 or lower it locked up again, but now it is literally every day I get in it is locked. The nice thing is that it isn't fully seized so I can generally kick it pretty hard and get it to loosen, though some days I still need to use the hammer.

The weirdest thing about all of this, is that I haven't had the fuse in for a few months now - this is happening daily (re-engaging and releasing) while the fuse isn't even in. It doesn't make ANY sense (I have a degree in electrical and computer engineering, so I know how absolutely no sense this makes)

At this point I'm probably going to put the fuse in, let it lock, free it up, bang it a few more times, pull the fuse and then cut the brown wire and see if anything changes. Honestly, the Z has completely gone to **** since December for me. In December my CSC failed on the road and needed that replaced, then a week later the steering wheel locked up, then my driver side lock mechanism stopped working so I can only unlock/lock with the physical key, and then my passenger lock started the same thing so now neither door locks/unlocks electronically anymore.

Then, for good measure, some guy wanted to race on the highway and I'm not about that, so he proceeded to get pissed off and cut me off before dropping a gear and spinning his wheels which kicked up a big stone and broke my windshield nicely to the point where I need to replace it now.

Been a super bad past few months with this car, she's lucky she's fun to drive when she actually works >.>

Gonna make me cry man :crying:

Cutting the brown wire does exactly what pulling the fuse does (kills power to motor that moves locking pin).

It sounds like you may have a mechanical problem, not an electrical one. Possibly too much grease, which is not letting the locking pin travel to full stop.

So at this point would the recommendation be to just cut my way into the unit itself and find a way to disengage the pin manually?

That's what I would do. There is at least one DIY on this site explaining how to get the thing apart and which switch(es) need to be jumpered.

Do you know where this DIY is? I've been hunting for a while now and can't find it. The closest I have found is Kenchan's DIY for removing the box, but does not explain opening/modifying the box. Fritz posted a while back a thread stating he had pulled the box and dismantled it, but he never posted any pictures or real steps, and when people asked him to (since it was in the DIY) he got defensive and they all started arguing about lawyers and liability until a mod closed the thread lol (this was a 2012 thread).

If you can find it or have it earmarked please send it over to me, I'm looking now though and still can't find anything on the internals of the unit yet which is really what I need at this point.

Sidenote, it seems like the unit can be removed/disengaged but still plugged in - does this fit what you have seen (I haven't been able to remove mine yet)? If so, it seems like I could theoretically remove the two safety fastening pins and just strap it somewhere underneath the steering column where it can do whatever it wants all day while not actually engaging anything.

Thoughts?

Ahh, thanks! So, he is essentially using the metal tab as a jumper even though the pin is engaged and in a locked position? Very interesting, technically his method could work for people who have had it fail completely and can't unjam it as well, basically trip the car to think it's "unlocked" and go on your way.

I'll definitely have to give this a shot when work gives me some more time, if it gets me beyond needing to kickstart the car every day I don't take the motorcyle that'll be a dream come true.

To update this, the theoretical became reality for me today. I had been putting off opening up the module as I broke my hand in several places, so I've been using a hammer to get the car started most days for the past couple of months. However, today I went out to start it and could not get it unfrozen (yes, this is with the fuse pulled). The wheel turned fine, it just had the indicator on the dash and would not turn on at all.

So, I raged at it a bit and went inside, but my neighbor texted me later saying that it was chirping every 30-60 seconds. I went out to look at it and sure enough it was chirping for some reason, so I unplugged the battery and plugged it back in and the chirping was resolved, but (of course) the windows forgot their positions and wouldn't close after closing the door. This is terrible timing as we are due for storms tomorrow, so I tried starting the car again to no avail. At this point I'm at here:

1. Can't start car (or even get it to Acc)
2. Windows are stuck partially open, and open more and more every time I open/close the door
3. Rain is coming tomorrow
4. Hand is broken

So, now it is 9:30pm and my hand is literally forced, so I reach under and disconnect the module and it came out pretty easily. I followed the steps in the link above, and it only took me 15 minutes to do (with only 1.5 hands usable). I cut into the box and found that there is a metric #@$%-ton of grease all over the wheel and gear which I'm guessing was part of the problem. The lock mechanism itself was retracted, but the pins were not being depressed so the car was unable to get beyond the lockout and start.

I pulled the gear and lock out and taped a copper tab between the two pins and taped the module back together and remounted it, car fired right up and no issue at all.

Altogether, the process was 20minutes and I wish I had done it several months ago. I have the gear/lock in a baggy in my storage unit now and hope to never need to touch or think about it again.

TLDR: If your car does lock up and you can't unfreeze it with force (hammer/etc...) don't pay to have it towed and replaced at over $1k. Instead, pull the module out, cut into it, and bypass the mechanism and you'll be good to go.