Kevdog93

Ah man, just read your thread.. Sounds identical to my issue. I've been trying to get under the car and take a look, I'm sure 1 glance at the starter/wires I would have discovered it haha. But this sounds promising! Thanks so much for the reply, I'll hopefully get under there tomorrow night. (Have a sick kid, gotta run her to the clinic tonight :/ hope it doesn't leave me stranded).

I got under the car last night and noticed the the issue with missing a cover (see photos above). Been glancing through the factory service manual on here and haven't found the piece yet.. Maybe I'll find it in the waiting room tonight lol.

Any advice on getting to the starter? Location, time involved, etc? According to your thread, the FSM is a little misleading.. I'll take another gander at the FSM, that should point me in the general whereabouts. Thanks SonicVQ, I'll keep you posted!

SonicVQ

You are welcome.

Your 08 Coupe may be different than my 11 Sedan, but this worked for me:
(1) Loosen front left wheel nuts
(2) Jack up the front of the car, and put it on axle stands
(3) Disconnect battery (negative terminal will do)
(4) Remove front left wheel. (this will allow you to see the starter and get access to the large battery cable)
(5) Remove the under belly plastic cover (all 20 bolts!!)
(6) From under the car, disconnect the solenoid wire from the starter (small wire)
(7) Through the wheel well, unbolt the large electrical wire (red)
(8) Remove the 2 starter bolts

(9) I was able to get the starter out by the front of the engine, by navigating it around all stuff in the way. You can't see much and have to do it by feel!! I moved the A/C compressor wire to the side to make enough room to get it out.

Good luck!

Kevdog93

Awesome, that helps a ton! Sure beats "Jack up the engine front side to create clearance for removing starter motor" lol. Hopefully tackle this first thing tomorrow evening, I'll report back with the results. Thanks man!

Kevdog93

Hate resurrecting an old thread, but I FINALLY got this problem figured out. Bought a used starter for $50, that didn't help. Looked through schematics once more and began to think the 2 starter relays in the IPDM were bad.. then got to looking at the schematic again. I noticed the clutch interlock switch was actually supplying these relays with battery voltage.. as a quick test, I jumpered out the clutch switch and lo and behold, it fires up every time!!

When this problem first started, that switch was the first thing I checked. Pulled it off, ohmed it out, everything looked good. Well, I was wrong lol. It'll pass an ohm check, but I'm guessing it wasn't making good enough contact to send full voltage/current to the relays.

Side note, I also did a quick test to see if I could potentially start the car with it in gear (with the switch bypassed). You can't. It goes straight to "on" but doesn't fire the starter. I'm guessing it's interlocked with the sensor on the upper stoke of the clutch. Aka, bottom sensor must be made and the top sensor open.

Long story short, if you have starter troubles and you ohm out the switch to rule it out.. do yourself a favor and bypass the switch as a quick test. Thanks for the assistance on here guys, keep on keepin' on!

SonicVQ

Thanks for the update.
Rochester also had his clutch switch die. Maybe this is going to be a up and coming "common problem.

Kevdog93

Well, the good news is that it's very cheap and easy to replace lol. To reiterate, if there's ANY sort of trouble starting (besides the obvious battery), jump the clutch switch and see if your problem goes away. Simple ohm test will NOT be sufficient.

I learned the hard way lol, so if I can prevent someone going through this grief, my job is done.

Trolololol

Kev, I read your thread in hopes that I would find a resolution.

I have been having your EXACT problem to the T. Including the long press, windows, doors, gear change, etc sometimes seemingly helping.

I purchased a new switch from infiniti and popped it in, still had the same issue.

I am beginning to believe that it is the switch connector that the switch plugs into.

Did you solder/splice the connector wires together? Or did you just stick a wire to connect the two holes on the connector?


This has had me for the past 6 months!

Kevdog93

I used a wire to jump between the holes on the connector.. check out my LOL! jumper (lol).

Kevdog93

One other thing I'll throw out there.. so when I jumpered the clutch switch, I wanted to test and see if I could start the car without pressing the clutch at all (test the scenario and see if I could start with the car in gear, ya know). It wouldn't start. There's another switch at the top of the stroke, I'm guessing the 2 are interlocked somehow in the CPU. Aka top switch is off and bottom switch is on. Can't really jump the top switch tho, cause it would think they are both made (thus not start). So maybe jump the bottom switch like I did and disconnect the top switch? I dunno, just throwing stuff out there.. it's worth a shot anyway, I know your frustration! Keep me posted