1996 Nissan Maxima P0500 CEL SOLUTION!

MikeM95831
Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:22:07 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

I have a 1996 Nissan Maxima that has been driving me crazy for about 3 years with an intermittent problem. I’d be driving on the freeway, and the cruise control would quit. Sometimes, the O/D light would flash (I didn’t count the number of flashes), and the CEL would come on.

Hook up the OBDII scanner, and got a P0500, which means “Speed Sensor.”

However, it could not be the speed sensor, because the speedometer would read correctly. I point this out because some of these cars would read 0 mph, or the speedometer would fluctuate wildly. When that happens, it is the speed sensor or the wiring between the sensor and the speedometer.

With my symptoms, the problem had to be between the speedometer and the ECU. A signal comes off the back of the speedometer and feeds the ECU; this way, the ECU can tell how fast the car’s going.

It turns out this last point is more important than I thought. If this signal is flaky, the ECU will be constantly fiddling with the timing and mixture, even though the car is driving at a relatively steady speed. In retrospect, I can see that the car was surging when I set the speed.

I changed the speedometer. Problem solved.

It took about 2 hours. All you have to do is take off the kick panel, the knee bar, the shell around the steering column, and the fascia around the instruments. The cluster then comes out with 3 screws. You can have one out in 20 minutes.

Only 4 screws hold the speedo in place.

A dealer in Texas sold me a new speedo, set to the same number of miles as the speedo in the car (I kept all the paperwork).

The independent garage near my work wanted 6 hours labor for this job! I did the job in 2 hours.

I just wanted to publish this success story because so many Nissans from this approximate era have this same problem. There is hope for you. I saved myself probably $400 doing the job myself, and it’s really not that hard.

If you need more details on this job, I’ll be happy to provide them.

Good luck!

5 posts - 4 participants