Hey guys, got a couple of questions here that I hope you all might be able to answer or at least get my pointed in the right direction. I have a friend who just bought a 97 Maxima SE, very nice looking pretty much stock with black leather interior, white guages, etc. Yesterday while playing with his keyless remote all electrical functions of the car died. At the time we attributed it to his security system doing a electrical dead switch type of thing (guy who drives an accord actually suggested this, I haven't heard of this with my Max before so I just went along with it).

Basically as it was explained to me, if someone tries to open the door from the inside or start the car while the car is still in security mode, the system disengages the power to the car making it impossible to tamper with. I've never heard of this on my 96 Max, noting that when someone tampered with my car the lights and horn go off.

To make my point I rolled down my drivers side window, closed the door, and clicked the remote lock twice to get the 2 blinks from the turn signals and the red light in the dash for security engaged. I stuck my hand in the window and unlocked the door without disengaging the security system... BUT - the car didn't honk, lights don't blink, almost like the system wasn't turned on. Is that right? Now I was thinking at this point that maybe my car had 'killed' the electrical system too (the way my friends 97 max apparently killed his electrical system) but putting the key in the ignition my car started right up, no problems.

His 97 max however is completely dead. Even after hitting the unlock key and security/lock key a couple more times - no response from the keyless. We then swapped batteries from his remote to mine to verify his battery wasn't dead - his battery in my remote worked fine - I could unlock my car with his battery, however his remote with my battery still didn't work. His remote may be bad, dunno, but it just seems strange that it would act that way...

And on top of that, that my car (96 max) now doesn't seem to mind if someone opens the door from the inside while security is on..

So, any ideas? I seem to remember once opening my door from the inside while my security system was engaged and having the damn thing start honking on me. Odd that it doesn't happen now..

 

For your car, (the 96) I'd venture to guess that the alarm might be in valet mode.

Does it chirp when you push the remote button to arm/disarm the alarm?

There should be a manual switch in the car for the alarm. To put it in full working mode again, you need to put the key in the ignition, turn on the car, then turn it off, and press the manual alarm button for a few seconds (3-4). (At least this is how my alarm works.)

As for your friend's car, does it even start now?

 

Hmm, never heard of the valet mode. My car has never 'chirped' when I locked the doors, but does flash the hazard lights when I click on the lock button on the remote. Will definately have to check that out, thanks for the info.

As for my friends car, turns out it was a faulty wire running to his battery terminal/post. At least that is the currenty theory. There must be a crack in the copper in the wire itself becuase the connection is fine, but when you move the wire around the connection breaks.

Edit: changed 'head lights' to 'hazard lights'. My car does not flash the head lights.

 

When you unlock the door after arming the system on your 96, do you wait a few minutes? If i remember correctly, it has a 1 minute grace period.

 

Is this the stock security system or an aftermarket alarm?

 

You are right - that was the problem, I wasn't giving it enough time to arm.

 

Stock system. I think you guys answered my questions though - turned out in both cases to be very minor problems that were blown out of proportion. If anything that's what happens when you're at work and can't actually sit in your car and check this stuff out, instead have to rely on your memory (which turns out to be the problem) of how things should work... Ahh well.

Thanks for the help.