Well, today I started up my car to see that the headlights didn't work, blinkers don't work, wipers don't work, and the wiper fluid won't dispense. But for some weird reason, the hazard lights work (I thought they were the same lights as the blinkers?)

Anyway, so since it was night time and since I had no lights, I called roadside assistance (you know the one I paid 1500 dollars for), only to have them tell me "What do you want us to do?" So I called the nissan dealer, and of course the service department was closed. I looked through all the lists that are on both fuse boxes (the one near my left knee on the driver's side and the one under the hood) but of course none of them matched the problems I was having. So I looked in the manual, that didn't help one bit. I guess I'm going to have to take it up to service tomorrow to see if they can fix it. Does anyone on here know which fuse it would be? It's pretty hard to look through everything when it feels like it's negative 20 outside and dark out. I'm sure when I get to service tomorrow they're going to say "Oh, we're too busy and you don't have an appointment." -- Great, thanks, I'll be sure to spend 36,000 here on my next purchase.

Oh, what's also weird is, sometimes when the car is off, the highbeams work, but then if you turn the car on they don't work. You can even hold them down while the car is off, then turn the car on and watch them go off. Right now, they aren't working whether the car is on or off though. Also, you know how with the wiper control you can either push the lever up to have it wipe across ones, or push it down and it has 3 down stages? Well, sometimes, it will work on the up push, and the 2nd stage on the down push, but not stages 1 and 3 on the down push. Only sometimes though, I'm not sure any of the stages even work right now.

Any help would be appreciated, if you think it's just a fuse, or an electrical problem.

 

Sounds to me like you have some real electrical problems with your car, I would take it to the dealer's service department and tell them to hell with an appointment you want your vehicle fixed. If they give you any problems you can go look for your salesman and they will usually try to get you taken care of, also if you haven't filled out your customer satisfaction survey yet you can use the threat of given the dealership crap rating to get things moved along. After all of the problems you described I'm thinking you have major issues with your electrical system, if you haven't had the car all that long I would try to get the dealer to do a swap for you.

 

With all the **** you paid for, you should have something giving you a rental car while yours is in the shop. So bring it in and tell them to fix it, and give you a car in the mean time.

I'd check for any fuse or relay that looks like it could be a "main" fuse/relay. It may have died. I don't know, maybe I'll go out to the garage and tinker with my car and see if I can figure something out to help you.

 

Well, I called Nissan, told them my issues, and as I said, they came out with "Well, if you had an appointment you could just bring it in, but we're going to have to make one for you." In shock I asked how I was supposed to know that the headlights, blinkers, and wipers would suddenly stop working on a 6 month old 2004 model car... That didn't get much of a reply. So I agreed to take my car in as long as I could get a loaner of equal value as they promised me when I bought the car... yea that didn't go over too well because I'm not 21, I'm 20, and when I bought the car I was 19 (which the saleperson knew, but still used it as a sales pitch).

Eventually I got a girl in service on the line who was also under 21 and has been in the same situation as me. She told me to bring the car in, as soon as I checked in they would setup a shuttle to take me home, and my car would be done the same day so I wouldn't be without a car too long. This sounded like the best deal I was going to get, so I went with it. Walked in, gave my name, my name was on a separate piece of paper and everything, signed something, tossed my keys over and took the shuttle home.

So here I am thinking that my car will be done today... think again. I get a call later in the day saying that the head unit control which controls all those functions is bad, and they need to replace it, but they don't stock the part, so they'd have to overnight it from New York. I mentioned it once more to them, as I had already said when I dropped off the car "but everything works when the car is off, it's just when you turn it on that it doesn't work." Apparently they don't listen to me (you'll see why later in my rant.) So, I said ok, not much else I could do.

Tomorrow came (Friday the 9th), I called in the morning, they expected the part by noon. So I called at 1, still not done. I called at 2, they had put the part in and it didn't fix anything. So now I'm kinda mad because they have had my car longer than promised and I have nothing to drive. I eventually ended up with the general manager and after a good amount of yelling, was told that he would get me a loaner car next time anything happened, but he couldn't do it today because the problem would be fixed today. He promised he would have them call right when it was fixed. So, a little more time goes by, 4:45 comes aound, I call back, they say we will have it fixed in 15 minutes and call you right back. I wait 30 minutes, no call, so I call again. Oh, I forgot to mention, each of these times that I called, I had to wait on hold for about 30 minutes. So at around 5:45 I finally get that girl on the phone who was also under 21 and generally wanted to help me. She said everything is fixed, you were right, when the car is off everything worked, when it was on nothing worked. That's because when the steering wheel was in its upright position, the wire connecting to something back there was connected and in place, but when the wheel came down, that wire was disconnecting itself. So, instead of saying "I told you so" I just went and picked up my car.

So I get to Nissan, and it's 2 degrees outside (literally, we've had 3 straight days of temps between negative 5 and positive 5, it's horrible). After getting my keys back from some lady inside, she tells me "The car is out front, did you see it when you came in?" I said no. She said "okay, well it says "in front" on your key tag, so it must be out there" and then she left me to find my car in the freezing below temperature colds. So I go out front into the jungle of cars and start pressing my lock button so my car alarm would beep, know what I hear? Nothing... complete silence. So now I'm just like, great... So I start walking to the back of the building (which feels like miles in this cold) and what do I start to hear? A faint beeping sound. Heyyyyy! There's my car, in the BACK. Thanks alot.

Anyway, it's all fixed now. They say they have never seen anything like this, but the general manager himself promised me if anything ever goes wrong again and I'm still under 21 at the time, I can have a loaner. Ugh...

 

I'd tell the GM that you want them to buy back all that bull**** you paid for, because it is obviously useless.

Also, if there is another dealership around that you can go to try them. If there isn't another dealer, and they do something else stupid, I would call Nissan, file a formal complaint, and ask for an alternate independant shop.