Dealer Couldn't fix it...for 5 YEARS!! (Nissan No-Start when COLD)

this one up to 12. okay hey everyone welcome back to pine hollow diagnostics it's cold outside and we have a 2011 suzuki equator aka nissan frontier with the four liter v6 that doesn't start in the cold the owner tells me this has been going on for what five years ken yep it's been to the dealer how many times uh every winner just about everyone okay he said he spent thousands of dollars or at least one thousand dollars on diagnostics no one's been able to track it down and uh well i think it's gonna be either the engine computer that doesn't like the cold just like we saw on the nissan titan or the ecm relay my friend keith defazio had a silver bullet two minute video on that but we're not gonna guess we are going to diagnose this thing so before we even touch the key no scanners or anything the oscilloscope is plugged into three channels here we have an injector control wire number two that's the blue trace right there ignition power power to the ignition coils it's a light green wire so i'm just back probing number two ignition coil and channel three is the ignition control wire that's a green wire now why those wires let's take a quick look at the wiring diagram and pull that up so before coming over i did some homework so fuel injector the orange wire were back probed on that now where does the power come from for these fuel injectors if you follow this white and green wire on the next page pin 16 let's see white and green goes across pin 19. there it is it comes up to this hot and honor start fuse 55. so that's the power feed for the injectors now for the ignition coils we're on ignition coil number two right here the light green wire you see that's a common power feed coming from right up here this ecm relay so when that closes we should have power to the injectors and also to the engine computer now this relay i guess it's a common failure according to keith it closes but the current here is not enough especially when the ignition coils fire to keep the ecm alive so you get this kind of like the computer goes on and off and it doesn't start so we want to prove that that wire with the key on and cranking should stay high all the time and finally the ignition coil control it's just going to be you know a little five volt pulse we'll see if the computer is firing this coil so let's uh set up the laptop so i can see it and we'll give it a crank see what happens all right here we go so that's keon i did not see let's check our connections first right in the the red trace went up to 12 the blue trace went up to 12. okay perfect that's all we need to see okay so we see here the injector power feed was good but we had no injector pulse same with the ignition coil power feed we had no ignition pulse and no coil control so that says to me that the ecm is turning on this relay that's good but there's no ignition pulse or injector control so again my guess with the ecm not liking the cold is making sense now let's plug in the scanner scan it for codes then when we crank it we'll see if the ecm either loses communication or if it's setting any codes all right so we got the scanner plugged in you have to go to the nissan menu it's a frontier so let's confirm that we'll do a full smart scan see what's going on with this thing all right so in the engine we only have one code ascd switch can com circuit can come circuit can come circuit uh interesting okay let's uh just just erase all the codes i love how fast the think tool pros can erase codes from all the modules and you see it all on this map all right we're in the ecm no dtc is detected okay free data stream all signals let's just check the basics here yep so we're at 20 degrees fahrenheit on the coolant temp let's try to crank it engine speed of zero now now it actually started that's because we had the key on for a while i think the computer warmed up yep classic so now the date is all weird let's back out so just like with the nissan titan if you let it sit for a while then it'll keep starting you know especially with the key on computer electronics or whatever's in there heats up enough but we have enough proof with the scope that there's nothing wrong with this ecm relay this thing needs an engine computer if the guy wants it to start when it's less than 20 degrees fahrenheit no no fault code data stream and it's not going to be you know crank or cam sensor failing those don't just cut out when it's cold out especially at such a set temperature very interesting okay now let's see key off key on crank it it's gonna fire right up then the data messes up so that's it this thing needs an ecm i'll give the customer a quote uh the think tool should be able to program it and that's it so cold start on nissan you might need an edge and computer pretty crazy uh thanks a lot for watching we'll see you next time bye all right so clean bill of health here little bonus footage don't let those communication codes distract you this is this is a computer problem and why are we not checking powers and grounds well a because it's cold outside and b there's nothing wrong with powers and grounds because the truck runs fine now only when it's below 20 degrees fahrenheit it's a very set temperature you're not gonna have a power that fails you know that precisely for five years in a row so we'll uh maybe part two will get a new computer and put it in this truck will be all set hey everyone welcome back to pine hollow out of diagnostics we're back on the 2011 suzuki equator it's three weeks later after we diagnosed the crank no start when cold issue uh the ecm was failing kind of a common problem on the nissan trucks so we got a replacement ecm same exact part number this is from the company flagship one now if you remember from oh more than a year ago uh from the case study with the dodge ram uh cummins diesel uh no cruise control when you hit the cruise control it would cut out we diagnosed a bad ecm well that shop ordered a replacement computer from flagship one and we had a pretty bad experience remember the pins were bent and then we plugged in the computer it was worse than the old one the truck didn't even run so i put that video out and the company actually reached out to me personally he's like what can we do to make this right i'm like well first of all can we have a good ecm for the dodge truck they followed up on that sent me another one but by that time the customer took his truck down to florida and got the computer placed down there and the truck is fixed the cruise control works so the diagnosis was spot on uh but we never actually got to try out the replacement ecm from flagship one now with this nissan i'm like hey guys here's your chance to uh to shine send me a good pre-programmed ecm for this suzuki now they don't do suzuki's but they do nissans so they figured it out program the bin and we'll see right now if this ecm works so flagship one is on the line and let's plug it in program the keys and the fobs uh pop in a new battery see if this truck starts up and runs then tomorrow morning is going to be cold and the owner will tell me if it fires right up at you know 10 degrees fahrenheit all right so the replacement ecm is installed new napa legend battery installed let's uh fire up the think tool pros and see if we can get this truck started make sure the vin matches up to the sticker so four zero one five six six should be the last six digits all right so here is the vin of this truck and here is the bin of whatever truck this came out of 5n1 and 0nwcb or 7bc51771 so what year is this two three four five six seven it's an abc so it's this is from a 2012 looks like but i mean it should still work this is vehicle xterra and 50 2011. let's do a smart scan and we'll go into the gnats because our little security light is on and unfortunately the think tool pro s cannot do a vin right on a nissan ecm that you have to take to the dealer so um i'll get in touch with flagship one and ask them hey guys you're supposed to program this bin i gave you the vin they didn't tell me they couldn't do it they just sent me the computer so we'll we'll have to straighten that out worst case scenario maybe they can pay for a trip to the dealer to get this thing programmed because they you know they send pre-programmed computers that's their thing so i'm gonna do the health report and clear out the codes and we'll go and program the security all right so let's go right into our nat so right now the computer's in lock mode it has the immobilizer trouble code so after replacing our installing operation replace ecm used part yeah we have two sets of keys so new password after 2010 is 9173 so take a snapshot of that okay one seven three okay turn ignition switch to the on position yes we're on okay remove the insert ignition key and then insert unregistered key check security indicator blinks five times turn it off remove the key wait for three seconds so remove this one put this one in one two three four five and remove it wait three seconds or more and now we don't have the mobilizer light so okay check that each of the register keys can start the engine so let's try that sure does shut it off check the other one ah this one is showing the red light so i guess we have to do it with both of them so that one is not showing the red light this one is so this one will not crank the engine so let's let's program the other one as well all right so computers install keys are programmed uh now the owner is going to take it back and we'll see if it starts up tomorrow morning when it's you know in the single digits if it does we'll know the computer that flagship one sent was good however the vin is still incorrect so i'll reach out to them see what they can do to make it right and uh yeah they they have to make it right because this is on video right [Laughter] we'll see you next time bye little bonus footage it looks like the thing tool pros in work support can do vin registration this is pretty neat so click ok and right here you can input the vin of the vehicle okay there's a new input value double check to make sure it's correct or vc four zero one five six six yes execute done okay so let's back out all the way and see if this thing will auto id with the correct vin automatically search hey we got the right vin this time victory so it doesn't need to go to the dealer and i guess we don't have to contact flagship one it is a frontier it is 2011 it's a d40 body style confirmed let's just do one more full code scan just to be 100 that this thing has no more code stored well there's one in the engine computer we'll see what that's all about so the engine is throwing one code p1564 ascd switch let's look it up in service info see what that means this scanner just saved us a trip to the dealer which i'm very pleased with no dtc is detected all right now i feel confident handing back the truck to the customer and he'll let us know it starts up tomorrow in the cold and if any warning lights come on but i think we're in good shape thanks a lot for watching and we'll see you next time bye it's saturday february 5th the temperature outside is about 90 degrees we're testing the subaru yeah this suzuki to make sure that the ecm change by pine hollow auto diagnostic works i had a cold start problem here we go i'll put it in let it warm up for just a second started right up ivan you did it again congratulations so happy ending with the 2011 suzuki equator you heard it from the owner himself he sent me a little video on a cold morning it fired right up so the engine computer from flagship one did the trick and hopefully last last a while i'm not exactly sure what goes wrong internally to cause this cold crank no start condition but uh you know that was the fix replacing the ecm so in terms of uh the customer experience with flagship one this time they pulled through uh one minor complaint was it wasn't pre-programmed to the vent of the truck um i thought that it would be they said it would be but it wasn't however it has a lifetime guarantee and if you have a good scanner on the later model nissans you can do your own vin programming so that didn't really uh slow us down at all last thing i want to touch on is when you're doing work like this you have to document everything so we replaced the ecm and then we had that code p1564 pop up for the cruise control and i asked the owner you know test drive it does the cruise control work he's like no it does not so question is did the new ecm have a you know a different issue now with the cruise control or was that a pre-existing issue uh the only way to to prove that is to do the health report you know at the very beginning the first time we saw this truck we did a health report and here it is from january 2010 i'm sorry january 10th to 2022 uh it says p1564 ascd switch so indeed that was a problem originally so it does have a separate issue with the cruise control uh and owner wants me to diagnose that it's a completely separate issue but without that health report we'd be guessing like well did the new computer have some internal fault with the cruise control circuit or was that a problem you know initially so document everything at least do health report pre-repair and post repair so post repair the health report this is february it has the exact same code so that makes me feel very confident that there's nothing wrong with the engine computer with the replacement there's another issue and you have to make be 100 honest with the customers like you know here we go we have proof that your cruise control was not working originally even though we didn't test it the code was there and now the same code is there so that's it and i guess thanks a lot for watching and i'll keep keep you guys up to date um when the truck comes back for the cruise control diagnosis we'll do that separately um shout out to flagship one for stepping up again uh i'll touch base with them to see why the new computer wasn't programmed because if you're a diy or you don't have the expensive scan tool and you expect the computer to arrive pre-programmed plug-and-play you might have to do the immobilizer you know that's out of their control but at least the vin should be what you know what you give them so you know i'll give them a b plus on this one but they they really are trying to make things right and i do appreciate that so thanks a lot for watching we'll see you next time bye

Channel: Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostics

Views: 119,188

Keywords: nissan, truck, frontier, xterra, titan, armada, suzuki, equator, crank, no start, ECM, cold, diagnostics, spark, injector, power, ground

Id: zX8PVccFE9Y

Length: 22min 45sec (1365 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 26 2022