vengeqi

sorry for the length, you can skip to the summary at the end.

new member and Altima owner here. it's been six weeks since I bought my used 2008 Altima coupe (3.5 SE) and it has about 27K on it now. the only 'mod' done to it is an add-a-circuit hooked into the fuse for the cigarette lighter. the add-a-circuit powers a radar detector and a gps, with no problems for 6 weeks.

my real issues started after an oil change. i took it in to Kwik Kar Lube & Tune, here in Nashville, as I had heard great things. i've changed my own oil for the past 6 years, on my 2 previous cars, since i've always been wary of quick lube places. this Kwik Kar place came highly recommended from a bunch of people I talked to at work, so I said I'd give it a shot.

I asked for full synthetic. the guy comes back after 20 minutes, saying it's done. i ask him if it was full synthetic, he realizes it was not, says it will be a few more minutes. some time passes by and he comes back in, with a printout about my battery. he tells me the car is not starting anymore, they tested to see what was wrong, and that the battery was seemingly dead. the printout seems legit, shows the battery with only 160 CCA (but still at 12.54 V). i try to start the car myself and it won't turn over, though some of the electronics/lights come on. i tell them to drop in a new battery and i am soon off with the supposedly synthetic oil, a new oil filter, a new battery and short $200.

notably, i hadn't noticed any starting issues with the car since i've had it, but then again i wasn't paying attention when starting it. i have the lights set to auto, and i know they stay on for several minutes when i park every day at the parking garage for where i work, so i thought that could potentially be a cause for the battery dying.

everything seems to be running fine since the battery swap/oil change, EXCEPT the auto climate control. it is not working the way it was before the battery change. it seems to forget the last settings it had been set to when i turn the car off. for example, if i set it to "auto 79 degrees" for both driver & passenger, it will not remember this when i turn the car off and then on again, and will remain off until i press the 'auto' button again after ignition.

is there some kind of fuse that could have blown with this, or is there something special i need to do to force the climate control to remember the last settings? i know i had to 'reset' the power windows after the battery swap, so i am wondering if there is something similar for the climate control, or whether i am just f'ed and the Kwik Kar guys shorted my electrical system through their incompetence.

i know this seems like a trivial problem, but i worry that it is an early symptom of serious electrical damage.

TL;DR My car battery was changed and now my auto climate control won't remember it's settings when it is turned off. thank you for reading through and for any help/pointers you can give.

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altima1krr

I believe factory warranty is 3yrs/36k ? if so , you should take it in =)

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vengeqi

thank you for the response.

i actually wound up finding the service manual for the car which indicated there was a problem with the front air control. i brought it to a nissan service shop, where they ordered a new unit and attempted to install it, but failed. the car wouldn't start for whatever reason -- supposedly a defective part from the factory they'd ordered.

they dropped in my original "non-functioning" front air control and all the symptoms suddenly went away. i haven't followed up on it, since i don't want to jinx myself.

hope this helps someone googling out there. i can also provide you a copy of the 2008 nissan altima service manual if you are looking for one. just PM me. or reply here.

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gameguru1360

it kind of makes you second guess about going to those lube & oil chain places. There's a Jiffy Lube chain here in California and they had to settle a huge class action lawsuit because they would charge their oil change rate, yet never actually do the oil change! People would be driving for 6k+ miles without doing an oil change.

It's just better to find a mechanic that you trust or shop that you trust and have your car serviced there once the 3yr manufacturer's warranty runs out.

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vengeqi

i hate the chain lube places. i hesitated for the longest time before going to Kwik Lube and was only brought in by yelp reviews.

it's been pretty difficult finding a good mechanic around here, though i think Inssan over in Franklin seems pretty good around here.

i may just have to move to a place that has a garage that i can work in myself.

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