Nissan Altima Starting Issues

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#8 of 14 by ken75

Jul 17, 2008 (4:51 pm)

No Bose stereo in this car and no big amp. Stock radio that Nissan puts in it's Altimas and I use it very little. The car is a 2008 Altima 2.5 SL purchased in November of 2007 so unless the battery may have a shorted cell (questionable) I must assume it is functioning as it should. None the less, I think a trip to the dealer to check the ignition system may be in order just to satisfy my curiosity.

Thanks for the input and if I should learn something useful, I will pass it on.

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busiris (Jul 17, 2008 5:39 pm)

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#9 of 14 Re: [ken75] by busiris

Jul 17, 2008 (5:39 pm)

Replying to: ken75 (Jul 17, 2008 4:51 pm)

No Bose stereo in this car and no big amp. Stock radio that Nissan puts in it's Altimas and I use it very little. The car is a 2008 Altima 2.5 SL purchased in November of 2007 so unless the battery may have a shorted cell (questionable) I must assume it is functioning as it should. None the less, I think a trip to the dealer to check the ignition system may be in order just to satisfy my curiosity.

Thanks for the input and if I should learn something useful, I will pass it on.

I agree..weird.

Even a decent battery, even discharged at the rate you would expect with the ignition "on", should regenerate enough power to start the car after the ignition was turned "off" for a while....

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#10 of 14 Re: Inadvertant contact with start botton [ken75] by jd10013

Jul 18, 2008 (6:07 pm)

Replying to: ken75 (Jul 16, 2008 7:02 am)

There was no audio or visual signal to alert me to an ignition "on" situation so I may have to go back to the dealer to determine if a problem exists. This is something I will always be cognizant of in the future as I do not want to waste more time with a problem of my own (?) making.

if the ignition were on, it should have said so. around the outside of the button it should say.........Lock.........AC.........ON.
whichever of those positions it was in should have been illuminated. My guess would be just a bad battery. As someone else said, they only need the car to start for you to drive it off the lot. on top of that, there's no telling how long the battery sat before it was put in your car. And I'd be willing to bet that batteries are something a car manufacture would gtry to save money on to keep costs down.

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ken75 (Jul 23, 2008 12:23 pm)

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#11 of 14 Re: Inadvertant contact with start botton [jd10013] by ken75

Jul 23, 2008 (12:23 pm)

Replying to: jd10013 (Jul 18, 2008 6:07 pm)

You have brought something up I had not considered or did not understand what it meant. The area around the "push "button" did have "lock" illuminated but this disappeared every time I pushed the button and depressed the brake. A cursory look in the owners manual showed nothing about this. Looks like I am still on the low side of the learning curve and should spend some time learning and talking to other owners about these problems. Next time I see this I will know what to do. Thank you for the reply.

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#13 of 14 Nissan Altima Starting Problems by earl15

Apr 30, 2009 (1:28 pm)

I have read several of these complaints and believe I know the underlying problem. I have checked all the way from my dealer to the national headquarters. Newer Nissan Altimas have a "safety" feature that if you park, turn off the engine and stay in your car the headlights will stay on (15 min, 30 min, longer depending on ambient light) if they are on the Auto setting. Supposedly, this is so that if someone is watching the car, they will think the engine is still on and you can escape easily. However, how safe is it if someone is watching, the car battery runs down and you can not even start the car to escape?

I have been told by the service department and confirmed by the national headquarters that there is no adjustment or setting to prevent this from happening. Watch out if you drive with the lights on auto, park the car, turn off the engine and wait several minutes to pick up your child from school. Your new Nissan Altima might not start when you get ready to go. Their only fix: use the manual switch to turn the lights on and off or open and CLOSE the door after you turn off the engine. If you open the door BEFORE you turn the engine off, the lights will stay on until the battery is completely drained!

I have another fix that I plan to use. I am trading my 2008 Nissan Altima and will NEVER by another Nissan product. If their engineers are this stupid, what else did they do that I have not found yet.

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#14 of 14 2008 Nissan Altima Startin Problems by desert_runner

Nov 12, 2010 (5:48 pm)

My mother has a 2008 Altima with the same starting problems. The car drains the battery when the engine is not running so if you let it sit for several days it is like having the interior lights on, the battery goes down and will not turn the engine over. Now this is a car with the i-key and I think this is part of the problem. There is a constant current draw on these cars to power the components that are searching for the i-key. I have had the car to the dealer and all they can say is the battery needs to be replaced. Don't replace the battery at the dealer. They want around $200 for a battery with a 1 year warrenty but you can get a DieHard from Sears with a three year full replacement warrenty fro a little over $100.00.

I plan to do some of my own trouble shooting to find what is really draining the battery. Hope to have more info in the near future.

I agree, don't buy another Nissan Altima, at least not one with the i-key. As for their service department I would give them an "F" for not being able to properly diagnose the problem.

By the way the car also has a problem where the front power windows will go down by themselves after turning the car off. The dealer can't find the sourse of this problem either. The 2008 Altima has issues!

14 messages, Last post on Nov 12, 2010 at 5:48 PM