OK, so I went out to the parking garage a little while ago and pressed the unlock button on my FOB. Car unlocked, everything was fine. Interior lights came on when I opened the door.

I stick the key in the ignition and all the lights go out and the car is totally dead. Nothing electrical responded at all.

I get out, shake my fist a few times out of sheer confusion, and then decide to pop the hood. I check the battery just in case one of the cables came loose or something. Everything looked fine, so I shut the hood.

Then, out of desperation, I try pushing a button on my FOB (which was not working 3 minutes prior)...the car responds. I get in, the car starts up like nothing even happened....


What?????!

I have never had this happen, nor have I had any type of electrical issues at all. Does anyone have any ideas? It almost seemed like the car became immobilized...did I somehow activate some type of anti-theft mechanism? I'm seriously grasping at straws here because I am at a total loss...just when I thought I knew my baby inside and out, this happens.

 

Man that blows, like i said.. Your car didnt even take high flow cats with out problems.. maybe you got a lemon? Dead battery maybe? do you have subs or after market speakers?

 

my G is definitely not a lemon man. 50k miles in and this is the first "problem" that i've had.

the HFCs worked just fine - i just didn't like the noise on the rev-down. yours makes a very similar noise. it's to be expected when you mess with the resonation of the stock exhaust, especially since i only replaced the cats (and nothing else).

the battery didn't die since the car did end up starting just fine - so that obviously rules that out.

i do have a sub and speakers, but those have been in for quite some time now. i'm confident that the wiring on those is fine since i did it myself.

any other ideas guys? has anyone else ever experienced anything similar?

 

happened to me before. It just kept going dead and coming back in a little bit. When I took it into get maintained at a nissan dealership, they put some blue goop on it. I can only assume they fixed some sort of bad connection

 

clutch? maybe you didn't have it pressed down far enough?

 

^ I have an AT...I've been fooling you all this time man!

The blue goop was probably since your cable was making a bad connection with the battery post. My negative cable doesn't sit 100% flush with the post, but it has been that way for a very long time. Maybe it finally caught up with me...not sure.

 

It wouldnt be the anti theft. That just doesnt allow it to start from my understanding. Cars are tricky sometimes. Ive had similar things happen with different car to never happen again. Who knows. Clean all the terminal, make sure everything is tight and if you happen to take some harnesses apart try to put some dioelectrical grease in them to keep a good contact and from corrosion. jmo

 

it actually does sound like the antitheft.....as gay as that is, thats how the system normally works. i would start by reading the codes if you had access to a nissan scanner. just to make sure all the keys and fobs are properly registered. occasionally they will just stop recognizing a fob(usually a battery issue with the fob)
also another thing to check would be for corrosion on the battery cables...ive seen that not let a car start before(not on a g mind you)

 

Sounds like the battery might be going, how old is it?

 

Just wanted to share dat I (JD) did not touch his car and gave him the bad juju everyone claims I do... I'm surprised T didn't say that...lol

 

You just had a bad connection with the battery sounds like. It can be fine one second and dead the next. I've had this happen on every car I've ever owned including both Z's and the NSX. Usually just replace the terminal ends and it's good to go.

Could be the key, but I'd honestly doubt it.