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2016 Note - Fuel Gauge Problem after disconnecting battery. Electrical issue - corroded pin in the wiring harness.

3K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  Ecate 
#1 ·
Thanks for being here and I apologize for posting this in potentially the wrong place.


This is an electrical problem with the solution that may potentially help others with a variety of electrical issues in the Nissan Versa Note...

I have to share this because I could not find an answer on line, but I did find the solution on my own. Hopefully this will help someone else.

I have a 2016 Nissan Versa Note I am trying to sell. It is the last car in my inventory as a Used Car Dealer. Health issues made me take another career. Used car dealer was fun while it lasted.

It has been a good little car. I have close to 1000 miles of my own on it. But it smells bad on the inside. Like wet animal bad... So this weekend, I decided to pull the seats, and the carpet then power wash the carpet outside of the vehicle. It was really dirty... But that is not the issue. When I pulled the carpet, I had to pull the center console, and before pulling all the air bag devices I disconnected the battery. I pulled it all out, power washed the carpet, had a nice day to let it all dry out then put it back together the next day. It went well... Until I put the battery back on. When starting the car, the gas gauge showed empty the low fuel light came on and the check engine light came on. My scanner says short in fuel circuit.

I pulled the covers and jiggled some taped up wires in the wire channel under the driver’s side rear.

Suddenly my gas gauge comes to life but doesn't seem accurate. It was raising and lowering while I idle...
Did my sending unit just fail? Could it fail that suddenly?

When I got back into my driveway, the door light was showing a door open, and my scanner reported, driver’s door open...Even though it was closed. I took the switch off and checked my connection there. This problem was actually there the first day I had the car... The door open light on the dash, but it went away on its own - till now...

Went to bed.. After work the next day I went right back at it.

Did I pinch a wire? Did I forget to plug something back in? I checked all my connections by the gas tank, even though I didn't tamper with them in the first place. Then I worked my way up to the driver’s side front, under the kick plate where the wiring harness is.

There is a white plastic harness behind that easily removed cover / kick plate. I disconnected all five of the wiring plugs, of which they are all different sizes and require no guess work to plug back in.

I pulled all the covers off the wire way all the way to the back seat. (Which I had out for troubleshooting anyway...)
The pillar cover where the seat belt mechanism is had to be removed as well, (All the covers are basically snap on covers no real tools needed)

The wire for the door switch is light green. There are only two light green wires in the wire channel I have exposed. With my multi-meter, I checked continuity on the light green wire and found both problems at the same time. The green wire runs up to the plug, and the pin where the green wire goes has corroded off. It's gone. I have continuity to the stub where the pin was. Maybe pulling the carpet out just jiggled it enough that it lost the pin. On the opposite side of that same plug there was a red wire... It was broken free from the plug. (I am guessing it has something to do with the fuel gauge, can't be certain.) I sprayed some battery terminal cleaner into both sides of all the plugs and used a dab of dielectric grease when plugging back in. I by-passed the plug with two wires, one for the door switch the other for the fuel gauge and when I put it all back together, Problem solved, it works great. I cut those two wires out of the plug on both ends and joined the wires outside or kind of around the plug with butt-splices. Enough slack so if anyone had to go in again they will be able to unplug them.

My point is, I would have been pretty upset to have changed the fuel sending unit only to find out it didn't fix it. Maybe everyone knows to check the harness for shorts, but I didn't expect a broken / corroded pin to cause so much trouble.

Check those connections, especially if you have ever had any kind of water in your car. Those pins are very thin.

I can easily see how these connections can cause a wide variety of problems. Not just a fuel gauge and door switch but anything that runs from front to back on both sides of this car can have issues because of these plugs.

Sharing my help others.
 
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