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’97 Nissan Maxima, RF310 AutoPagePrinted From: the12volt.comForum Name: Car Security and Convenience Forum Discription: Car Alarms, Keyless Entries, Remote Starters, Immobilizer Bypasses, Sensors, Door Locks, Window Modules, Heated Mirrors, Heated Seats, etc. URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=35301 Printed Date: April 27, 2024 at 3:15 AM Topic: ’97 Nissan Maxima, RF310 AutoPage Posted By: dusty21271 Subject: ’97 Nissan Maxima, RF310 AutoPage Date Posted: July 09, 2004 at 3:05 PM The car has a high performance intake and had an RF310 AutoPage alarminstalled last year.
In late April (of '04) the car was "hard starting" - usually in themorning after sitting all night - and when finally started huge puffs ofwhite smoke would come out of the exhaust. Finally wouldn't start at alland had towed to shop. Shop said two of the fuel injectors were stuck wide open and major amountsof fuel were pumping through the system. Replaced the two fuel injectors(to the tune of $400). Picked the car up on a Wed. evening. Seemed tostart and run fine. Next morning the car wouldn't start. Went to work,came home, started the car (which started with that "hard start" again). Called the shop - told them the deal. They said it was probably due toexcess fuel in the system and once it dried out it would be fine. Startedthe car the next day (Fri). Drove it all that day. Got home that night(barely) car parked and died. No more starting at all. Back to the shop. Shop now saying that car isn't sparking at all whentrying to start. Checked all six ignition switches and NONE sparked whichled them to look elsewhere. After 2 weeks of "searching", the shop came to the conclusion thatwhomever installed the car alarm, wired in to about half of the wiresgoing into the computer and either fried the wiring system and/or friedthe computer. Shop replaced the computer which did NOTHING. Now the shop is saying ithas to go to an "electrical" specialist to deal with the wiring. This has been darn near 3 months now. I'm seriously considering justtaking it to a Nissan dealer, but don't want to 'cause I know they'regonna try to rob me blind for anything they can. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions would be MOST appreciated!!! ------------- Dusty Replies: Posted By: defective Date Posted: July 09, 2004 at 8:42 PM ouch....... that kinda sux.... i would temporarily remove the alarm so the shop has nothing to complain about... I don't doubt that the alarm caused the issue, these are not very simple cars. Get your problem fixed, then take it to a well established installer, find a thirty year old veteran. (not saying young people aren't smart, just that old guys are more commonly experienced, i'm only 21 but have the experience of a 30 year old.)
------------- Posted By: jimmeezgolfvr6 Date Posted: July 10, 2004 at 5:34 AM 2 possibilities.....either your shop is telling the truth and whoever installed the alarm has indeed made a big mess of things by connecting many wires to the car's computer,
...or.... maybe they're full of sh*t!! i've had a look at the autopage website to look at the features of the rf310. it appears to be a fairly basic alarm with features that could describe an entry model alarm for just about any brand. i have a tough time justifying any need for the installer to connect wires to the car's ecu. to do so would certainly turn an otherwise simple job into one that's 5 times more complicated and time consuming. although i'm not able to diagnose your car's problem, it really doesn't sound like it's related to the alarm....especially if you've been using it without problems for nearly a year. btw, puffs of white smoke tend to indicate head gasket problems. please don't quote me on that though. good luck! Posted By: 97gss Date Posted: July 10, 2004 at 7:28 AM I'm with jimmeezgolfvr6 on that one. If the alarm has been fine all this time then it's probably something engine related. The white smoke could be the headgasket but don't quote me on that either. I'd have a compression test done and go from there.
Posted By: Lurkin Date Posted: July 10, 2004 at 9:24 AM check the water make sure there is no oil in it, and check the oil make sure there is no water in it. it will look like melted chocolate ice cream if there is. check your breather cap(where you fill it with oil) too see if any milky residue there.
Posted By: dusty21271 Date Posted: July 13, 2004 at 11:02 AM The white smoke was dealt with when they replaced the fuel injectors, so that is no longer a problem. Head gaskets were checked, oil was checked, everything engine related was checked. It all seems to be leading back to the wiring. I agree with jimmeezgolfvr6, as does my mechanic, that we can't figure out why the alarm installers would have wired into about half of the main wiring into the computer. I'm thinking I should have the alarm taken out, but who should do that? The alarm place that installed it was an "authorized" installer of AutoPage alarms. I'm thinking I should find another "authorized" installer in my area (Philadelphia) and take the car to them and see what they have to say. I will say this though - it would explain why my friend who just bought a 2002 BMW has stickers in the windsheild of the car (where you would put your oil change sticker) saying that the car is pre-wired for an alarm, however the alarm MUST be installed by a BMW installer ONLY or it will void any and all warranties on the car. Seems problems like this occur more often than you hear about... Thanks for all of your suggestions and comments. Any more are greatly appreciated!!! ------------- Dusty Posted By: dusty21271 Date Posted: July 19, 2004 at 11:43 AM I am so seriously about to set this car on fire and call it a day!!!!!
The electrical place said it was absolutely the alarm that is causing allof these problems because it should NEVER have been wired through the ECU. However, they won't remove it. They said to take it back to whoinstalled it and have them un-install it. Now why would I take it back to the idiots who installed it (obviouslywrong) and trust them to un-install it properly???? I picked the car up from the shop last Tuesday (7/13) since they haveofficially given up on it - since everyone thinks it's the alarm. NOW GETTHIS - how about the stupid thing ran FINE for about 4 days. Started withthe same problems again (the "hard starting") on Saturday, and now(Monday) will not start at all. It cranks, but won't turn over. So nowit's sitting in front of my house, where it will remain until I hit thelottery so I can afford to take it to a dealer where, at this point, Ithink is the ONLY place I'm really going to get to the bottom of all ofthis... The moral of the story is - NEVER have an after market alarm installed inyour vehicle. Dusty ------------- Dusty Posted By: dusty21271 Date Posted: August 27, 2004 at 9:05 AM Oh, this just keeps getting better and better!!! So I took it to a Nissandealer (had it towed - AGAIN - thank g-d for AAA!!). I think I had ittowed there the last week of July. After having it for 2 weeks withouteven looking at it, they FINALLY looked at it last week (8/17/04). Tookthem a day and a half to figure out what was wrong with it. They finallydetermined that there were two wires that were either crossing or shortingout and they were causing the OC sensor and the Crank Shaft sensor to gobad. They fixed that, got the car running and then determined there was amis-fire problem. They fixed that. So they call on 8/20/04 and say thecar is fixed it's running great, the check engine light (which had been onfor over a year) was not on anymore, no codes were coming up on thediagnostic, it's in perfect running condition and come pick it upwhenever. The bill for all of that was $1,164.71. Okay, not great, butnot nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. So last night(8/25/04) I go pick it up. How about out of that bill, only $84 dollarswas for parts and the rest was for labor....man I'm in the wrong line ofbusiness! Now, ready for this... I literally pull in my driveway (by the way I'mabout 40 min. away from the dealer) and the friggin check engine lightcomes on. Well at this point it's now after 9pm so no one is even at thedealer to call. So this morning I go out to go to work hoping that it'sjust the stupid check engine light for some reason and I get about 4blocks from my house and the car just dies. After about 15 min. I get itstarted again and it sputters the entire way back to the house. So I call the dealer and tell them that as soon as I got home last nightthe check engine light came on and so on. So here's what they say to me"bring it in and we'll look at it." I swear if I could have reachedthrough the phone and choked the idiot on the other end I would have. Anyway, I say "uh, sir, did you not hear me when I said IT DOESN'T RUN???" I said "you're 40 min. away from me and I AM NOT paying to have it towedto you." They said "well, we have a towing service that will come tow itand then after we look at it, if we determine that the problem is relatedto something we worked on, we'll pay for the tow. However, if it is aproblem that is unrelated to what we already worked on, we'll bill you forthe tow along with the repairs." OH HELL NO!!!! Like they're reallygoing to call and say "yeah, it was our fault, sorry, we'll pay for it" - likethat might happen. So now I REALLY don't know what to do. It's been 4 months, 2 shops, thedealership and almost $1800 later and it's still messed up...... I can'ttake much more!------------- Dusty Posted By: Velocity Motors Date Posted: August 27, 2004 at 10:06 AM I'm it total awe with the whole situation !! I'm not mechanic, but I have had my share of no starting vehicles in my lifetime to help you with your situation. I've also had the thrilling experience of rewiring other installer's messes where they went into the vehicles computer for some stupid reason and wire in remote starter's and alarms systems. ( Please realize this is so that you can do your OWN diagnostics and trace back the problems & this is taking into consideration that the alarm has not been removed ) The easy part is to trace the wires and see where they lead and compare notes to what they tapped into. The wiring diagram for your car is below and these are the only wires the installer should have used for installing an alarm or remtoe starter. They might now have used all of them, but some of them are mandatory. Finding the alarm wires will be easy as the CPU will probably be under the driver's dash area and the wires will be taped up, so use a utility knife to cut off the tape ( making sure that the battery is unhooked ). After you have found the wires and what they are supposed to be hooked up to, disconnect them at the solder point or junction point and wrap tape around the ends so they are not exposed. If the CPU has been tampered with, it shouldn't be a problem to trace the wires they tapped into OR cut and reconnect the cut wires or disconnect the alarm wires from the CPU harness. After the alarm has been removed test the car. If it's still not starting check the engine to see if there was wires in the engine bay that the installer could have tampered with. With a NO START or NO CRANK scenario, I would definitely look at the plug wires and the distributor ICM module. If the ICM is not functioning properly, then you will be NO SPARK at all and this will be intermittent. The spring inside the distributor may also be damaged causing intermittent problems. I'm telling you these instructions because 90 % of the time the owner of the vehicle will be more thorough in troubleshooting their own vehicle than a mechanic will be in a shop. I know your frustrated and at this point you will try anything to get your car running properly, but if a mechanic puts the scan tool on the car and the car doesn't give back and indication that a certain part of the engine has malfunctioned, they will not even look there. Mechanics these days have become complacent with diagnostics equipment to do all their troubleshooting that they forget how to troubleshoot with their own heads. Don't get me wrong, the computer's are great tools in diagnostics troubleshooting, but sometimes when problems like this arise, you have to wonder ? ------------- Jeff Velocity Custom Home Theater Mobile Audio/Video Specialist Morden, Manitoba CANADA Posted By: Velocity Motors Date Posted: August 27, 2004 at 10:08 AM | ITEM | WIRE COLOR |POL| WIRE LOCATION | Notes: ------------- Jeff Velocity Custom Home Theater Mobile Audio/Video Specialist Morden, Manitoba CANADA Posted By: dusty21271 Date Posted: September 10, 2004 at 3:59 PM Okay, here's the latest - I trailored the car back up to the dealer myself and the dealer STILL has the car and they are nowsaying that they need to replace the wire harness because every time they fix one wire another one breaks and they just don't understand why. $972.22 plus tax will be the cost for this. Here's where I lose my mind... I just paid those (insert expletives here)darn near $1200 for apparently NOTHING and now they want darn near anotherGRAND for something that in my opinion (according to what they are saying)should have been done in the first place.This is EXACTLY why I didn't want to take it to a dealer in the first place!!!!!HELP PLEASE!!!!!------------- Dusty Posted By: jacksonj Date Posted: September 13, 2004 at 10:43 AM Not sure if you've seen this site,https://forums.maxima.org/ but it's all about Maxima's. After looking at the first 2 pages for the 4th Gen Maxima's seems there are quite a few people with starting issues.
Posted By: dusty21271 Date Posted: September 13, 2004 at 11:04 AM Jacksonj - Thank you - I have been on that site and you're right - seems to be quite an issue. Apparently there have been a few "service bulletins" posted by Nissan regarding this/these very issue(s). I've now contacted Nissan America (out in Cali I believe) to express my absolute disgust with the entire situation - not that I expect that to accomplish anything really - but we'll see. I'll continue to keep you all posted - hope you'll be around for the next year or so.... :( ------------- Dusty Posted By: dusty21271 Date Posted: October 11, 2004 at 3:28 PM Let's update, shall we... 4 trips to the dealer and over $2,000 later, the check engine light is still on, the car still misfires, still smells like gas when it FINALLY starts. So far they (and by "they" I mean the dealer) have replaced a camshaft position sensor, an O2 sensor, 1 fuel injector (and it was one of the ones I just had replaced in May) repaired several wires, put the stock intake back on the car and I think that's about it. They tried telling me I needed a new batter (which was/is a bunch of horse poop since the battery in the car is a six month old Energizer) and the last thing they said was the starter was "loose" and will have to be replaced - funny how that never came up the previous 3 trips to them - I told them not to touch it. AND, they SWEAR it has NOTHING to do with the aftermarket alarm????? I am in the process of suing the dealership - I mean after them having it for almost three months and paying them almost $2,000 along with their incredibly rude/ignorant attitude and their REFUSAL to give a "loaner" car (which was only asked for after the THIRD trip back to them), I figure they have it coming!!!! ------------- Dusty Posted By: ThurzNite Date Posted: October 15, 2004 at 11:37 PM I'm on Maxima.Org... I've had a spell of bad starts. First place to start is figure out why your Check engine light is on. So either buy a code reader for $99.99 from Kragen/PepBoys/Autozone or whatever's close to you and email me the code: thurznite@altimas.net (yeah, I modified 2 altimas before). I'll help you from there. I have a Factory Service Manual for my 97 Maxima so I think I may be of service.
So send me an email and I'll work with you. Good luck. Jae ps: I think everybody's right by saying if the alarm's been working fine so far, it's probably not the alarm. :) Posted By: dusty21271 Date Posted: October 18, 2004 at 8:40 AM Jae - fantastic - will do - good lookin out!!!
------------- Dusty |
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