Dead Versa...where to start?

Posting in hopes that this might be a common issue with the Nissan Versa and someon in the hive will have an idea where to start.

Came out of the store on Sunday morning and the wife unit's Versa decided not to start. Nothing at all on the key. No click no grunt just silence. Ran perfectly fine with no codes when I parked.

Not the battery and not the starter. That much I know.

It is an auto so maybe the gearbox park/neutral switch?

Not had much time to troubleshoot, but I am concerned that if it is not running by the weekend, SWMBO will trot off to the dealer and buy a new car.

Try slapping the auto shifter handle forward a few times. The car may not realize it is in park.

Are you using the fob or the key to start it?

JohnRW1621 wrote: Try slapping the auto shifter handle forward a few times. The car may not realize it is in park.

This is a second option in my guesses as well

If it's an early Versa (2007-2008), check the battery cables especially the negative. The top posts deform easy and the cable can break clean of without any warning.

Edit: And don't just look at them. Shake them a little.

Check the bolt that holds the main ground wire to the body.

Is...." dance in glee" an appropriate response to the title?

I would definitely wiggle the shifter in all seriousness

Dash lights all come on, but no crank? Or all dead? If all the lights come on, is the security light on (red car icon)? If all dead, check the main fusible links off the positive terminal.

Fixed.

My mechanic figures someone got in the wrong car and stuck their key in before they realized they were in the wrong car.

Not sure how likely that really is, but there is a redlight icon that I had never noticed before that was on. I did not have a clue that this car had such a feature. Now I know what the icon is.

At first he said that it was going to be a "Dealer only reset" and that I would have to tow it to the dealer, then he called back and said he found a workaround. $40, all good so far.

To antihero....She would have bought another Versa.

Then they got into their own car and drove off! Nice!

Glad you got it figured out!

Wrong key in wrong car = dead seems odd. Couldn't this cause major havoc for the salesmen at Nissan dealership with a lot full of Versa?
Same issue at a rental car agency with more that on Versa on the lot.

Wrong key used 5 times = P1610 lock mode. Car will not start. It's supposed to go away with a working key. Sometimes they can be real fussy and require several attempts, magic rain dances, and in some cases BCM replacement.

In reply to Run_Away:

Wow. Could really sucks if you had more than one Versa in your family or in your fleet.

Something seemed "wrong" when I got in the car to the point where I actually checked to see if I was in the right car. The wheel seemed more tilted and it was turned hard in one direction even though I had done a "drive through" so as to be able to drive out of the parking spot.

Tried another key. I have since read about 3 different "dance" moves that you do with the key, door, fob and/or ignition. My mechanic who had originally said they could not even scan it cause of the code called back ten minutes later and said they found "A backdoor" into the computer and were able to re-set it.

It is going to take SWMBO a year before she starts to trust the thing again! If it does it again, I wont even get the call, she will tow it to Nissan and buy a new one.

I was gonna say "shotgun!" Glad you got it worked out.

Run_Away wrote: Wrong key used 5 times = P1610 lock mode. Car will not start. It's supposed to go away with a working key. Sometimes they can be real fussy and require several attempts, magic rain dances, and in some cases BCM replacement.

I'm confused as to the point of this.

It knows there's an attempt to start with a bad key and does not start.

So far, so good.

However, by what you just wrote, it should still start with a good key. At which point I become puzzled.

If the lockout can be disabled with a proper key what value does an explicit lockout mode add? It should already not start with the bad key (or you wont' get to the 5 times threshold), and should start with the good key. Isn't that the point of keys in the first place? I could totally see logging failed attempts throwing a code so that (if you bothered to get the code read) you would be informed.

I could even make a case for the lockout kicking in at 5 tries and not being overridable just by using a good key. Personally, that would piss me off to no end if it applied to a car I owned. But I can at least makes case for why it's better in at least some ways than just having a key, even if they don't outweigh the downsides in my opinion.

I see zero upside to an lockout system overridable with a good key. Whoever engineered it (or whoever decided that it be engineered anyhow) seems to disagree, so I'm wondering what am I missing?

Don't ask me, I didn't design it! That's just my experience working on them. What the service manual says and what actually happens are not always the same.

In reply to keethrax:

I think it is intended that a proper key will always start the car but the reality seems to be that once the code is thrown an unintended error keeps the proper key from working too.

JohnRW1621 wrote: In reply to keethrax: I think it is intended that a proper key will always start the car but the reality seems to be that once the code is thrown an unintended error keeps the proper key from working too.

I get that. In fact, that's exactly my point. If the wrong key is already not starting the car, and the right key should, what have you gained by trying to implement the lockout?

If you removed the lockout functionality from the equation entirely you'd get the same behavior with regard to starting the car, right? So if the desired behavior with or without lockout is the same, what does it add (other than a new and interesting point of failure apparently)?

Another versa?!?

Haven't there been enough suffering?

JohnRW1621 wrote: In reply to Run_Away: Wow. Could really sucks if you had more than one Versa in your family or in your fleet.

If that's the case there are clearly other deeper issues within the family.

1988RedT2 wrote: I was gonna say "shotgun!" Glad you got it worked out.

My vote was about 10lbs of tannerite and a good rifle.

captdownshift wrote:

JohnRW1621 wrote: In reply to Run_Away: Wow. Could really sucks if you had more than one Versa in your family or in your fleet.

If that's the case there are clearly other deeper issues within the family.

This. In all honesty, I highly doubt this has ever been an issue. I mean, unless it was a BOGO on Versa's. Even then, I'd likely tell them to keep the free one.

My wife had a first year '07 for about 4 years and 80k.
It was dull but effective.

Many of the auto parts stores like Advance and Auto zone have/had a few Versa for parts runners.

In reply to Bobzilla:

There's a home about 10 miles from me that has 3 murano crosscabriolets parked out front when everyone is home. It's quite odd as homes in the neighborhood sell for about 140-160k. They have almost as much MSRP of murano crosscabriolets parked out front. Once I'm able to drive again I'll swing by the place to get a photo of the hilarity.