Intelligent Key System Warning Light...

chii370

true, I thought so too. But its been a million different "causes" according to the stealership. Im starting to think most of their mechs have no idea about the 370z. I feel bad for GTR owners, dropping my car off there would be enough to keep me awake at night.

It fails just by... randomly stopped working. Over the past few months SMODE turns on in my left console and the "S" turns off next to my gear indicator. If I press the Smode button it flashes on the console again and beeps, not turning on. Twice it was quite a dangerous event as it happened during downshifts and failed to match the revs with road speed causing me to fry some clutch disk.... luckily it didnt lock up the rear and spin me out. This would be a surprising event for any 370 owner used to using SRM, since you just select a gear and let off the clutch.... not expecting your RPM to drop to idle while going 50 mph before letting out. It happens at complete random, once it happened as I had been cruising for about 80 miles in 6th at about 75. Didnt touch it, just... BEEP SMODE. No reason at all. Each time I pulled off the road and did an ECU reset and its fine for an undetermined amount of time.

As for the CSC thing...... we all know that issue so theres no need to get into it. Last time I was there they said all the sensors were "fine" I would bet my nuts they dont even know where they ARE, let alone actually checked them. If anything they just hooked up a OBD and HERPADERPED all the way to the uneducated conclusion that nothings wrong. Yep, its my imagination lol.

SouthArk370Z

As per phunk, it's probably an easy problem to fix ... but my experience with Nissan service matched yours - they don't seem to have the slightest idea what they are doing.

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phunk

My SMode and cruise didn't work once but it was because I had been screwing around with the clutch pedal travel. It hurt my brain at first and then it just came to me. There are limit switches at the top and bottom of the pedal travel. My screwing around made it so that my top limit switch wasn't being fully engaged. The programming kills cruise if the clutch isn't up, so it didn't work at all cause the ecu thought I was riding the clutch. SRM defaulted as well, because it realized something was wrong because it was being told the clutch was constantly depressed. I was getting some message or something on the display as well. The SMode didn't default for literally a day or two after the adjusting... It worked normal and then boom just stopped. The cruise didn't work immediately but I didn't notice right away. Once I readjusted the switch and reset battery all problems fixed for good.

This is why i mentioned your clutch switch! Maybe it's the same thing.. Either bad switch or just out of adjustment.

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chii370

Omg.... thank you... i ****** with the clutch peddle too, reading somewhere it could have some advantage that i cant even remember? Clatter maybe? **** i dont even remember why.... maybe to get a wider feeling engagement point? Whatever.... i will put it back to the way ity was and see if its fixed.

phunk

Just look around down there with a light and you will see the switches. The one at the top of the travel is probably not being pushed in far enough when you let off the pedal. You can either adjust the pedal back to how it was, or you can loosen the adjusting nut on the switch and thread the switch down further so it gets more push. If you adjust the switch, I think you have to unplug the connector on it because the wiring is too short to be twisting around in circles.

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Spooler

Sorry to hear. The problem is dealerships don't pay well enough to keep qualified personal. The way they pay is total BS.

phunk

BTW my clutch adjustment that I was changing was my RJM adjustable pedal ratio.

Be aware that if you are only adjusting the connecting rod for the master cylinder piston or the pedal stops that you need to be very careful about how its done. If you have it adjusted for constant hydraulic pressure it can cause rapid wear of the slave cylinders release bearing, wear on the crankshaft thrust washers, and kill the clutch quickly if its not getting proper clamping force due to constant hydraulic pressure.

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LennyK

GREAT INFO - THANKS

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kenchan

Np. But there is a way to permanently disable it now if urs is working even intermittently.

If broken, wack it a few times with a light hammer when your car battery is fully charged.
Search brown wire and fuse pull.

cgruttke

If anyone is keeping tally. I have a 2011 370z (currently at 33K miles) that came with the D steering wheel lock from factory. Light came on but I was still able to start. They replaced it with another D. They also replaced my cruise control clutch switch as that was failing. So not sure if the lock was covered by Nissan or it was lumped into my $50 co pay for the cruise switch as I thought my co pay was per item. But I'm not going to argue if they want to charge me less

qgranillo

So, unfortunately, I fell victim to the Intelligent key warning light and my car wouldn't start. My car is a 2010Z with only 31k and it's been running perfectly up until this happened. I had to have my car towed and have Nissan take care of the work for a whopping $1500. Was not happy about that, as I'm sure you can understand. One thing I did, and I encourage all of you that runs into this problem to do the same, is to go to NHTSA.gov (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) Click on Vehicle Safety than scroll down to Recalls & Defects and fill out a complaint. I found that I wasn't the first (and hopefully not the last) person to fill out a complaint for this problem. If enough people do it than hopefully a recall will be set up. And if your like me and you've already paid for this problem, you'll get your money back. Hope this helps!

jadeb0x

There is a recall to get it fixed last that I remembered.

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Joeld0803

I ran into this issue just recently on my 2010 370 convertible. never had a problem and 78,000 miles on it. I parked the car recently close to the building to avoid direct sun throughout the day but a torrential rain came that afternoon and the car was then parked under a water fall.
I moved it to prevent flooding but on the way home I noticed this Key light by my fuel guage came on and I started having starting issues. I read all these posts about the steering lock and the IPDM and the horror stories and thought to myself geeeze that is an expensive repair at the dealer. My lock was working as I could hear the mechanism work under the dash but yet the light was on and push the button and no crank. I found that if I got in the car and held the brake and poked the button one time from the get go with the brake applied it would crank and start and then the light would come on for the key. If I shut it off and tried again it would not start. Recycled everything form a start point of getting in the car and pressed the brake and poked the button one time it would start. The key being in the fob holder had no bearing on it whatsoever.
I decided to go to the IPDM module first since it was exposed to all that rain water hammering my windshield and going down the back side of the hood. As I was removing it I shook it and water was coming from it. I removed it and disconnected all connectors. separated it from the black shield cover and then removed all the fuses and relays laying them out in order according to location. I pried the white box apart and cleaned it down with electric cleaner both on the circuit board as well as the pin sockets and inspected for damaged pins and solder joints on the board. Some of the sockets appeared to have mildew traces and the fuses appeared to have a white corrosion scale on them and I assume some of it was from natural humidity over time. I set the circuit board on a towel on a oven pan and set the temp on my oven to 280 degrees and let it warm up. Turned the oven off and inserted the pan in the oven for 15 minutes to dry the circuit board. Removed and reinstalled all fuses, relays in original position. reinstalled in the car and tested and the light is out now and everything is working fine.

If the steering lock mechanism is working and you can hear it and your light is on and the engine has cranking issues I would highly recommend removing and cleaning the IPDM as well as all wire connections and fuses with electrical cleaner. just saved about 700.00 at the stealer from what I have been reading about this issue.
I drove it into work 50 miles one way this morning and the light remained out the whole time and it fired right back up after getting here. the light was coming after about 5 miles of driving before but sometimes sooner and sometimes later as whatever connection issue in the IPDM was intermittent. Just clean it up as best you can and dry it and reinstall. Took me about 2 hours but saved me alot.

Just a suggestion.

xTIMMYxCOREx

It's a recall. Dealer will replace for free.

barncobob

a new battery will cure a myriad of problems,,cheap fix if it works..