Woke up this morning. My 09 wouldn't start. Loud clicking noise. Brake pedal locked up. Car has power, but front windows won't go down. Sound familiar to anyone? Thanks!

 

sounds like the steering wheel lock thing that has been happening to some

 

Is it quick repetitive clicking? If so might be a dead battery.

 

Yes. Quick repetitive clicking means either battery is too weak to turn starter or battery cables are not making good connection to battery posts (sometimes corrosion can block the contact).

Many (if not most) '09 Maximas have had their battery replaced by now. These cars were built between April '08 (although not sent to dealers until June '08) and July of '09. That was three to four years ago.

This car has a huge number of electrically operated devices, and the engine compartment of the 7th gen tends to get very hot. Those factors tend to shorten the life of batteries. Perhaps adding to the problem, there are many who feel the OEM batteries in Maximas are not the best batteries on the market.

 

Your 09' made it a lot further than my 10'.
The Nissan motorcycle battery in my vehicle started to crap out at around 14K.
I wasn't interested in the typical dealer run around crap with recharging or eventual replacement with the same POS battery so I just replaced it with a real car battery (Interstate @$100.00) and all is good.

 

I concur - check your battery for for a loose cable/bad connection or replace the battery altogether.

 

Everything points to the battery, which if its the original battery was not a maintenance free battery. You need to occasionally pop the caps off and refill with distilled water. If yours is dry then refilling and recharging might bring it back, but in reality - get a new battery. Search the forum for what others replace with, but Interstate or Sears are reasonable choices.

 

How often should the battery be checked and topped up?

 

Depends a lot on how you drive and WHERE you are. The hotter the environment, the more often you should check (assuming you don't bite the bullet and get a maint free battery) but at least once a month should be good enough for most to get good service from these older technology batteries.

 

just had the same bull**** on my 2010 with 27k miles. dealership even refused to allow me to replace the battery they made me have the vehicle towed to them before they would do anything.

(add this to my long list of issues with this car though...)

 

If you are replacing batteries go for an Optima! I am a bit surprised to hear though that some people's battery isn't maintenance free. Mine came with a maintenance-free battery and I've had it with no issues at all since July 2008.

 

They replaced mine with less than 12K on the car. Now i'm at 36K and the battery died because I mistakenly left the lights on for 5 minutes. not 10 or 15, but 5 measly minutes. I definitely am starting to miss my reliable 05 Max.

 

The problem is not your Max, but the low-grade battery. The Maxima is a very reliable car. The battery Nissan is putting in it is not.

Having the lights or radio, etc, left on with this OEM battery with the motor off is a cardinal sin. I don't even use the timer that turns the headlights off several minutes after leaving the car. I turn the lights off BEFORE turning the motor off.

Through this pampering, I have managed to still be on the original battery that came in my Max, which was manufactured in Sept of 2008. But I will be upgrading at the first hint of a weak start.

Once you get a REAL battery in this car, you can go back to normal behavior.

 

What he said...

Same thing happened to me, clicking sounds with no start up. Factory battery was faulty bought a yellow top Optima D35 battery and couldn't be happier.

Car starts right up, no flickering light when on timer and the acc time is twice as long if not more. Good stuff!

 

Help! Dead battery at 30,100 miles / 20 months old. Odd cause the radio, lights and navi were still working just fine. Temp in Atlanta around 100 degress today. Is this still covered under my warranty? Should I just head to the Stealership or Sears on tommorrow?

 

Radio, lights and navi are working because they don't require much power. But starting the car requires a lot of power, which your battery no longer has. As you may already know, heat kills far more batteries than cold weather does.

If your car was sold new less than 36 months ago, you might get some little break from the dealer. But probably not, because many dealers sort of lump batteries with wiper blades, brake pads, etc,which are considered as 'wear and tear' items after around the first 12 months or so. That is not fair, but any help from your dealer would probably be small, and good only on another battery similar to the one that just quit on you.

I would not go that route. I would simply consider your battery as having lived its full life. With the experiences of most posters here, I suspect they would consider 31K miles on these weak OEM batteries as being a full life. I would strongly recommend getting a REAL battery, such as the yellow top Optima D35, or an Interstate or Sears, all of which have written warranties on battery life.

Let us know how this turns out.

 

Just one example of why Nissan is not in Toyota's league when it come to reliablity.
Mine died before 15K less than two years old. A prior Camry V6 I owned was still going strong with the factory battery after 8 years of ownership.
With that said I'll pay that price any day to own my Max over the Camry.
Just go out and buy a real battery.

 

My battery also died early, 2 years old and less than 16,000 miles on my 2009 SV. However I used to have at 2000 Maxima GLE with over 60,000 miles on it before tha battery got replaced, and I have a 2004 Frontier with 90,000 with the original battery. Nissan probably has a number of battery manufacturers is selects from and from time to time some bad ones enter the manufacturing stream. If There are 70,000 maximas produced annually, highly unlikly there are that many failures by time they reach 20,00 miles.