Question- I have a '10 Maxima SV that I purchased a few months ago, (allegedly) clean history, etc and its been awesome. However, this past week I noticed the orange light on the dash that says key came on, so I assumed I needed to charge/ change the battery inside the intelligence key. Late last week, I drove my car out to work, ran back out less than 10 mins later and its completely unresponsive. I had the battery and alternator tested, both in great condition; tried getting a jump just in case; changed the batteries in my main and spare key and nothing has changed.

The key will unlock/lock the car but won't start the engine (literally just the orange key light on the dash is on, nothing else). I followed the instructions of manually starting the car using the intelligence port (which I understand should still start the engine even if the key was completely dead) - Nothing. I just head it towed to the dealership for a diagnostic, but I was wondering if anyone's experienced anything similar and could maybe give me a head's up of what the issue could be? Thanks, all

 

Do you have the same problem with both key fobs?

 

Yes I did; that's when I thought it was almost definite that they key fob itself couldn't be the problem. And that was before and after I replaced the batteries in each

 

If your steering wheel is locked up, then I have a gut feeling that your electronic steering wheel lock has failed. It is quite common on 09/10 models. There are temporary fixes for this on the web and on this site. If it is what I think it is, once you get it fixed, a lot of people here including myself have pulled the fuse on this puppy, never to have the problem again. If you do pull the fuse make sure your car's ignition is on or the car is running before you pull the fuse. Nissan has extended the 09 model year warranty for this part to 6 years unlimited miles. I don't know if the 10 model year was extended or not, your dealership can tell you that if you go that way. BTW it will be a 900 dollar fix if the dealership fixes it for you. I would try the temporary fix first before having the dealership fix it unless you have some kind of warranty.