How do you change the vehicle speed sensor on a 96, max.

 

I have the same problem. I have ignored it so far but what this means is that your spedometer is failing intermittently before it fails altogether. There is a speed sensor on the transmission but I suspect there is one under the dash as well. Best of luck.

 

side question: does changing tire size and wheel size gonna affect the speed sensor? I assume the sensor is designed to find out the RPM of the transmission and depending on which gear it is in, it'd translate it into speed.... so correct me if i am wrong.

 

Do you know which sensor it is? There one on the trans and one behind the cluster. The one behind the cluster requires replacement of the whole cluster.

 

Here is a pic of where the one on the tranny is;



Open the hood and stand at the driver side fender and look down at the transmission. Its on the top of the trans twoards the firewall.

 

Yes, if it is the VSS on the transmission it unscrews then you have to heave up on it to get it out. The sensor is pressure fitted into the tranny casing. I replaced mine... all to find out it is the one behind the cluster that is messed. That requires cluster replacement = SUCKS.

 

since when is there one behind the dash?
Anyway, I was getting the VSS code for the past two years. APPARENTLY THERE IS A TSB FOR 95/96 MAXIMAS THAT STATES THE MAIN HARNESS COMING OUT OF THE INSIDE OF THE CAR INTO THE ENGINE BAY, HAS A CHANCE OF CRACKING OF THE WIRES DUE TO AGE. That's exactly what mine did.

 

I was going off of what was mentioned up top. Is there another unit between the VSS and the cluster? If not, my bad for assuming that remark was true. It was also mentioned that tightening the cluster screws has worked in the past (probably by chance).

 

The speedo head in the cluster can go bad also.

 

90% of the time its the one in the tranny.

 

I had a bad speedo/odo unit. Because of price I decided first to try and replace the VSS. Did'nt fix the problem. I always heard a new cluster was needed. NOT TRUE. I got the run around from alot of dealerships on getting a replacent speedo. This is because it has the odometer on it (fraud reasons). Everythingnissan.com would not sell me a new one. Jonh Elway nissan wouldn't do it unless I left my car there until it showed up. I went down to Boulder nissan and they tell me they can order one but it will just show 000,000. That was fine. I just wanted my speedometer to work. Then they called told me they could only put the original miles on it. FINE, that was preferable. It showed up finnaly and I installed it myself and everything works fine.

Hope it is just the VSS. It is easy to replace. Sits atop the tranny one or two screws if I remember right and fairly cheap.

 

I was getting the VSS code (forgot what it is), and the speedo only worked intermittently, so I changed the sensor on the tranny. That still didn't help, so I took the cluster apart, cleaned the connections (which didn't look dirty), tightened a few screws, and put it back in. That was a couple of months ago. I only had one time where the speedo stuck at 0 for a few seconds, and the code hasn't been back. So that seems like it's solved the problem, at least for now...

 

i just got an new vss i will try to install it and hopefully the code p0500 won't show up again. I had a old tranny to try it on first, it looks easy but the tranny was on basement floor Hopefully it wil be easy and fix the problem