2013 Altima - Steering wheel buttons flakey

General discussion area for the L33-chassis Altima.
zipper91
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2018 12:27 pm
Car: 2013 Altima S, 2.5L

Post

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum but excited to see that help is out there. Thanks for having a great place to share our experiences and to help eachother!

Recently I started having an issue with the left-side steering wheel buttons on my 2013 Altima. The trouble occasionally happens when I change radio volume using the steering wheel buttons. Most of the time this works normally but occasionally presses of the volume buttons results in the dash display menu changing (as if I had pressed the adjacent menu button). It seems like somehow these steering wheel button signals are getting crossed. I think it happens more after I have turned the steering wheel but I'm not sure. I've seen this issue mostly while driving but have also reproduced it while parked. It is very intermittent and doesn't show up when I want to observe it.

Here is an example of what I see:
I normally keep the dash menu set to real-time MPG display to help me improve my gas mileage. If I drive down the highway, take an exit ramp, while stopping at the light I often tap the volume (-) several times to reduce the radio volume. When I tap the volume(-) button, I can see the dash display menu change from MPG => main display => No warnings => tire pressure ... it is like the first 2 or 3 presses of the volume button are misinterpreted as menu-button presses. After the first 2 or 3, the subsequent presses of the volume button work normally and change the radio volume as you would expect. After that point, while I'm observing it, no matter how many times I press the Vol- button, it is fine and works normally... Until the next time it happens. I'm not sure what triggers the misbehavior.

Anyone have ideas of what the problem could be? Has anyone reported this problem before?

BTW, I've owned this car for about 4 years and put over 100K miles on it without any issues. This problem just started happening about 2 weeks ago and seems to be getting worse (happening more often.) I'm pretty good with DIY repairs and milked my previous car ('03 Sentra) for 408K miles before driving it to the junkyard with bald tires and peeled pain but otherwise in good condition. If I can figure out where the problem is, I can almost certainly repair it. Based on other reading I've done, I suspect the spiral cable but I don't want to just throw money/time at the problem without understanding the other possible causes.

Any help, insight, or ideas are appreciated.


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