Hi,

I have a 97 maxima that is not running 100% and thought I would use my OBDII reader to help diagnose. From my research it would appear that my car has the plug, but I cannot find it for the life of me.

I am in NZ, so the car is RHD, but the only plug I can find is next to the fuse box and is nothing like and OBD connector.

I would appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on this?

Thanks in advance

Rob

 

Rob, the OBD-II standard was made mandatory for all new cars sold in the USA starting in the 1996 model year. The EU adopted the standard for petrol cars in 2001, and diesel in 2003. I don't know when the OBD-II standard was adopted in NZ. The Australian standard ADR 79/01 & 79/02 (Australian OBD standard) was phased in between 2006-2007. In any event, the protocols stipulate that the OBD-II connector must be within 2 feet of the steering wheel.

 

If its not in your pass side left footwell (would be driver side for us cars), try checking the driverside footwell below the dash/center console, where your left foot would be - those are two spots it can be found in US cars.

 

its right under the steering wheel next to the fuse box. Its under the fuse box and its a white port. heres a pic from a similar to our 97 maximas.

 

As Junebug1701 stated, USA cars had to be OBD II starting in 1996. Since Nissan changed the body for the 1995 model, they also made the USA Maxima OBD II compliant. However, the OBD connector was not by the fuse panel. It was located by the ECU on the right side of the car, your driver side/our passenger side. Go back and look by the ECU. I would suggest you remove the plastic panel so you can see better. Also look on both the left and right sides just to be thorough.

Here is a photo of my 97 with the dash panel removed.

 

Thanks for the speedy replys, yeah the only thing that I have that looks anything like the OBD connector is the 'consult' plug in the picture above.

I would have thought that if they put the obd connector in cars for the US, they would have done the same worldwide, but it looks like that is not the case.

I also took off the drivers [RHS] side panel and there is no ECU there either, and on the LHS there is an ABS unit that looks about the size of the ECU, but I cannot seem to locate the ECU.

Would I be correct in assuming the ECU should have the diagnostic screw on it that I can manually obtain the codes from, or is this also linked to OBD that might not be on my NZ version of the car?

Thanks again for your help, this is a great forum!! :-)

 

Take a picture and show it to us. That's probably the ECU.