I have a 95 Maxima. The fan control switch will not work on level 1. It works on level 2-4. Also the lights behind the (defrost, floor, front, etc) buttons also stopped working. The dealer said that I need a new heater assembly. Which costs $300 installed. I told him to forget it. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

Do you have the auto climate control or do you have the manual climate control? From your post, it sounds like you have manual controls.

$300 sounds pretty steep. I wonder if it's just not your control unit. For comparison, if you have an auto climate control unit, it's about $150 from Courtesy Nissan w/ their 20% discount, and for the manaul climate control unit, I would imagine it's about the same. It's a pretty easy DIY job, and I can email a copy of the instructions on how to take the dash apart to access it, if you want. Initially, I'd plan about 1 hr to do it, giving yourself plenty of time to not break anything while taking apart your dash for the first time. Right now, it would only take me about 15 min. to take the dash apart and reinstall it, since I know what I'm doing now.

As for your lighting problem, there are bulbs that you can just replace w/o having to replace the whole climate control unit, if everthing else is working properly. You can buy the aftermarket (i.e. Radio Shack) bulbs for about $3 for 4 bulbs to replace the OEM ones, however, I found out that they are about 25% dimmer than the OEM bubls, which will cost you about $3 EACH. I can email you a copy of those instructions as well, provided by some of the forum members that made them a while back.

Email me if you want. Good luck.