Does This Sound Dodgy...

[r33skylinegtst]

I took my car to an electrician (who shall remain nameless) to have an voltage drop problem looked at, as my battery kept draining. After taking the car in i was advised it was dodgy wiring on the amplifier in the boot, they added a proper connector and i thought all was well.

I took the car out to Tharwa that afternoon, and upon getting back home and turning the car off, i needed to start it again and move it. When i flicked the key, the tacko did nothing, sat on 0. i took the car straight back to the auto electrician, they checked the fuses and said they were all ok, but advised i book the car in for them to have a look at.

When they contact me next they said it was faulty, that this was a common fault with R33 Skylines, and that they could get a new one for me from Nissan for $600-700. I know Genuine new Nissan stuff is expensive but i was floored.

I contacted a spare parts place and found i could source one for around the $50. I called back the auto-electrician, who had not even offered this option to me, and told them i could get a spare. they kept offering to take out the 'faulty' unit and let them install the replacement when it arrived.

I was pretty cut by this time so i told them to put my dash back together with the tacko, and paid them $90 to do sweet F all.

Driving around the following week it kicks back in and has been working fine for the past month. Does that sound dodgy? Were they genuine that it was stuffed and that its a common fault because i had never heard of it happen as regularly as the guy had made it sound. It seemed very coincidental that it stuffed up the same day i took the car to them to have something fixed. What do you think?

[low200]

my tacho in the 200 didnt work when i bought it, took it to tuggers auto electricians and they said the tacho was stuffed. $600 for a genuine nissan replacement. i went and bought a aftermarket one off ebay for $80... has a shift light and everything, took me 10 mins to install and it sits quite nicely in front of my stock tacho so i dont have unused dash area. the tacho in the R33 is identical to the ones in S14s (they share a LOT of parts) so it wouldnt suprise me if it was common. how old is your skyline?

[r33skylinegtst]

1996 model. only done about 80-90 thousand on the clock.

[leech_]

from memory your car had a nismo aftermarket dash so it's not a stock one. Maybe take it to a different electrician

[r33skylinegtst]

thats just the speedo not the tacko. that was still a stock component. its working fine, i just found it quite coincidental it broke the same day i took it in to them.

[JaiJai]

from memory your car had a nismo aftermarket dash so it's not a stock one. Maybe take it to a different electrician

Yeah Id go see someone else, see what they think bout it

[tridentt150v]

Take the dash out and check the connections, sounds like a dodgy connection to me. A simple fix, about 2 hours to clean up and reinstall. I installed my nismo speedo, and then cleaned up about 2 gallons of soy sauce that had been spilt in the dash by the yaccuza, or Hiko's Teryaki Takeaway and Pizzeria. It was dried up, but everywhere behind the dash. Your car could have been in the same industry........

And before you all go making Tokyo reservations for your intimate evening, I made up the restaurant name.............lol

[Sinista32]

Obviously dodgy. I take mine to Tuggeranong Autoelectrics and have found them good, so I hope it wasn't them. Beleive it or not BDL in fyshwick arnt bad either, they do more than stereo work.

But as Trident said. If you can be botherd check it out yourself. There is a few folk on here that are real helpfull pulling cars apart.

[widebody32]

Being a mechanic i see this happen a lot. A lot of the time it is just coincidence as usually the customer is looking for noises or problems closer when they get the car back. Usually the reason they quote you on a new one is so as they can warrant their work and they have less chance of it coming back, but the good ones will give you both options and just let you know that if you do buy secondhand there is a good chance that it also could be faulty. A lot of the earlier nissans did have faults with dry solders on the dashes and this is more than likely what it will be. If the problem comes back then pull your instrument cluster out and have it checked. I can check and resolder if this is the case. Did they fix the original problem of draining the battery?

[Scooby]

there are a few places in Sydney that specialise in auto instruments. repairs are usually quite cheap.

[sigsputnik]

this may or may not be of much help to you, but the workshop manual is usually quite helpful in diagnosing problems. it has flowcharts for checking voltages and stuff - certainly this and a multimeter helped me diagnose and fix my attesa problem.

i did have a magically depleting battery when i had my r33. it started draining after i had an alarm/immob installed (let's not name names - we'll call them strathpaddock). In retrospect, I think that was the design of the alarm in that case.

Could it be an alternator problem?

[r33skylinegtst]

The draining battery problem was fixed, a connector was making contact where it should and the amp was recieving power all the time even when the car was off, so they fixed that up.

Like i said, its working now and i'm happy to leave it provided it doesnt stuff up again. Thanks for the input though, i didnt want to be too quick to point the finger at them.