Hey everybody I'm having a massive problem with my G. As I was reversing into the parking spot my fiancé noted smoke coming out of the engine bay around where the battery sits. At the same time the interior lights began to flicker. I immediately turned the car off opened up the hood and examined the engine bay and couldn't see any smoke.

I then turned the car back on I noted that the ABS light VDC light and the slips light were all on along with the check engine light. Additionally the HID headlamps would not turn on and the DRLs, rear lights and side markers were flickering.

Anyway I spent about two hours scratching my head and cannot figure what is going on so I'll make a long story short. The symptoms are:

Nighttime lights will not turn on
Air conditioning does not work
The tachometer always reads zero
ABS light, VDC light, and slip light are on
When I turn the turn signal on the slip light and the green turn signal light alternate
Wipers were stuttering and then stopped working altogether
Transmission shifts extremely rough, basically slamming into gears (AT)
Intermittently I saw the 'check AT' light, the 'AWD light', and the CEL (I did connect it to my laptop and saw a P1283 code which means that I'm running lean but that is likely due to the Berk highflow catalytic converters that I installed about one month ago)
At one point there was smoke and sound emanating from what I believe to be air conditioning clutch
Also around the front of the engine bay I heard a very loud noise that sounded like a gas purge that lasted about five seconds

I am a student and I relocated to Calgary yesterday for work and now no longer have my car available to me to drive I left all of my tools and my heated garage in Halifax. The car was shipped across Canada on a 18 wheeler as it was the cheapest option for me. Prior to shipping the car I spent some effort on preventative maintenance and changed the front and rear differential fluid, transfer case fluid, seafoam, oil change, spark plugs, cleaned the dry air filter, new PCV valve, changed cabin air filter. Any insight into this is much appreciated!!

 

Could be something has happening to your IPDM which is just behind the battery and contains fuses and relays for ignition, starter, fuel pump, ECM, low and high-beams, cooling fan, AC, tail lamp, wipers, etc, etc... Basically everything that happens outside of the passenger compartment. You might pull the battery and inspect it - see if it got wet for instance or if any of the wiring looks toasted.

You can replace fuses in the IPDM but not individual relays. A replacement comes as a complete unit (and it's not cheap).

Hope you can find the source of the trouble..

 

So the car sat overnight in the rain and this morning I was able to drive it. The dash still looks like a x-mas tree and the headlamps and wipers do not work. Other then that it drove smooth and had 100% power. Occasionally, the trans will shift hard.

I noted a clicking sound from this box at the front passenger side of the engine bay when the engine is running. When I attempt to turn on the lowbeams I get a buzzing sound from the same box. It has 2 harnesses connected to it and I disconnected it and ran the car but then turn on the turn signal would cause a rough idle and RPM drop.

What is this box?

 

Also I did remove the battery and examine the IPDM. It was dry with all fuses and wiring intact. Also could the blinker mad cause this issue??

 

I think that's your Daytime Running Light control unit for Canada (see below) although I don't think the white zip-tie was part of the stock installation... Glad the IPDM looks OK. Beyond that I've got no idea what could be causing your cascading errors, you should probably take it somewhere and have the codes read to help diagnose it. Other members here may have better ideas. Do you think your aftermarket audio system or remote start mods might be messing with things? Ground kit all intact?

 

Sounds like a short if there was smoke and now it doesnt smoke, because it already shorted out.

 

Thank you very much for that information! The zip tie was added by me because I had to relocate this unit when I did my wire talk on the passenger side.

Can there be codes other than the check engine light? (I realize the airbag system has its own codes and requires it's own reader, but does the electrical system also have its own code reading system?)

The aftermarket audio system was installed by myself and is operating the best of any system in the car at the moment.

Remote start system was installed by and an electrical engineer and all of the connections are properly soldered. The remote start system also continues to work flawlessly.

I certainly realize the above two modifications could cause this issue but there was really no way for me to diagnose With my lack of resources.

The grounding kit is intact I checked that.

In this new city I contacted a mobile mechanic and he is going to drop by tomorrow morning. We will likely scratch our heads together for a couple of hours. I contacted a Nissan mechanic and spoke to him for about 20 minutes over the phone and he basically said you got to take it to Infiniti. I do have an appointment with the Infiniti dealership here in Calgary Monday morning. They were closed at noon today due to massive flooding here in the city. The most likely scenario at this point is that I'm going to spend a few thousand dollars and they're going to fix it.

 

Where did the smoke come from the pass side? If so your wire tuck may have grounded out.

 

Just wanted to give everybody an update. The car is working fine now! Very happy here. So the mechanic did pay me a visit and we couldn't figure anything out and I was planning to take in the car to infinity Monday morning. I contemplated reversing the wire tuck. As I was reading the service manual section on the IPDM I saw a diagnostic mode that could be done without a consult tool. I have attached screenshots of that page. Once I follow the procedure the car systematically ran every function controlled by the I DM. And everything worked. I turned the car off and back on and everything is back to normal. I'm still confused as to what happened. My best theory is that there was a short due to heavy rain and no permanent damage was done and by putting the IPDM into diagnostic mode caused a reset. Thanks for everybody's help on the forum as it pointed me in the direction of the IPDM and ultimately saved an enormous amount of time and money. As a precaution I have taped around the whole area with waterproof gorilla tape to insulate it from rainwater.

 

 

Man, serious flooding up there. Glad you're OK and your car is back online. Hope it remains in stable operating condition. Cool tip about the "self-test mode" too. I'm sure the Consult tool makes for quick diagnostics but it's great that Nissan also programmed in these manual test modes.
Stay dry!