2004 g35 sedan 6mt HVAC problems

[rzcarguy22]

Hello, im new to the forums, ok down to business(yes, i looked through old topics, found nothing helpful, and the dealer said this is the most screwed up HVAC system he's ever seen in 30 years blah blah blah)

midsummer my A/C stopped working.

It was working on my way to work. as i parked, i heard a fairly loud flushing noise. didn't think anything of it. that afternoon after work, the ac wouldn't turn on. I recharged the refrigerant, and the A/C system turned back on, but within 10 minutes the A/C system shut off cuz the refrigerant leaked out again. it leaked out of the little hose underneath the HVAC unit. I did a little research and decided it was either the evaporator, the expansion valve, or a seal in the box.

I took the dash apart to diagnose (it was a lot more work that it looked like in the FSM). and to the best of my knowledge, that was the problem (i wasn't able to take it fully down mainly because the car is my daily driver and i needed it for monday in driving condition.

come september, when it started to rain again, (i can live without A/C) i notice that my air won't change which vents . its stuck on the face pointing vents. It appears to be a motor/sensor problem on the air mode door.

I end up running the diagnosis on the HVAC, and the air mode door sensor and motor fail, as well as the passenger side air mix door sensor and motor. The light sensor (i guess determines how sunny it is outside) also failed. i believe the driver side temp sensor also failed, but i would have to run it again to confirm.

I havn't had much time of late (going on business travel weekly) to work on it, so i took the car to an infiniti dealer to have them give me an idea (and hopefully fix it) i talked with the mechanic guy, and he said it'd be about 1300 bucks parts and labor to fix.

I get a call the next morning saying that the whole dash needs to come out (thats what i thought the 1300 bucks was doing....) and i was looking at paying over 100 bucks an hour for 16 hours just to remove and install the dash. i have no intention of dropping $2500+ for a car that is worth 11k on a good day according to kbb.

so i have my old car that i've been fixing to sell for the past few months, so i might be able to have my infiniti out of commision for a week or so to get this fixed.

question i have, is after taking the dash out (a large task in its own) how much of a b**** is it to replace/ fix the motors/sensors, along with the evaporator? i looked through the FSM, and it looks like a large trial and error guessing game.

so, did me taking the dash down the first time cause the motors/sensors to not act correctly (ie did i mess them up/plug them in wrong/break them) and how does one fix my laundry list of problems? any help/advice would be appreciated

[Q45tech]

Why one buys Nissan Extended Warranty to give you 7 years or 100k to study FSM and become your own self expert.

Nissan provides a wonderful internal diagnostic system integrated in HVAC computer that with a few add on external pressure gauges can pinpoint every problem if coupled with an adequately trained human brain.

What were the HVAC codes BEFORE you started tearing into it?