Hi. New here. Two questions regarding my 1988 with automatic. It's a Canadian car and I remember the dealer telling me it's a GL model. Anyone ever heard of a GL, or am I remembering incorrectly, or is it a Canadian model only sort of thing. It has the digital dash, but no voice warnings. Anyway my first question is regarding the engine overcooling when it's hovering around freezing out or below freezing. When I drive in the forementioned conditions, the car never gets hot enough for the overdrive to engage. If it's not too cold out the car gets hot enough, but when I then turn on the heater the coolant temp drops and the tranny drops out of overdrive. I've had to shove a piece of cardboard in front of the rad so I can keep the car hot enough to get the O/D to kick in. Once it's above 5 celsius or so, I don't have this problem.

My second question is a problem not related to the first question. When I run the A/C it the compressor never cycles on and off like it does in my Dodge Grand Caravan. Is this normal for Nissan or not. If it's not, what could be the cause? Note that the compressor turns on and off when I switch the A/C on and off. The problem is that when it's on, the compressor never cycles - it just runs and runs and runs. I'm worried about burning out the compressor or something.

Thanks.

 

The trim level of your car is called the GXE. Nissan did refer to the 85-86 base models as GL which was renamed to GXE in '87 and has been that way ever since. I believe Canada did get some trim levels that the U.S. didn't, particularly the Brougham trim. I've never heard of any Max's in the U.S. called that.

The reason that you don't have the voice warning system is because your car is a floater. Mine is also a floater and I don't have the voice warning system or the power antenna override switch either. You can do a search on this site or at the 2nd gen Max club to find out more info about floaters.

I didn't know that the O/D inhibitor was related to engine temperature, I always thought that it went by the transmission fluid's temperature. However if that's the case, then you may want to replace your thermostat with one that kicks in at a higher temperature. Normally the lower temperature ones are preferable, as they keep the engine cooler, though if you can't shift into O/D, you'll end up doing more damage to your tranny than would be prevented to your engine from that thermostat.

One way that you can kick it into O/D, (this works occassionally), is by shifting the car into neutral and dropping it back into drive while your driving. I've found that the car automatically goes into fourth gear this way.

Also, I'd check your transmission fluid, make sure there's nothing wrong with it and make sure it's at the proper level, otherwise you could have shifting problems. Also, remember that the ATF needs changed every 30K miles.

I'm not sure about your A/C compressor, I've never really paid any attention on whether it cycles or not. I don't believe it does though. Don't worry about it, these cars are amazingly reliable, much more so than anything Chrysler ever built.

-C-

 

Well my friend, you got a floater. I wish I didn't have voice warning at times, so sometimes you can consider yourself lucky. Well, as your overcooling issue. With the temperature being at or below freezing, of course that's going to keep the car cool you could switch the thermostat with a high temperature one and that might alleviate your problem, but quite honestly, since the ambient temperature is so low, it will definately make your cooling system run real efficently. You might try fabricating a grill mask for you car to disrupt airflow to the radiator, becareful about putting card board near the radiator, it could possibly catch fire. If you put it in front of the grill, and the lower vents under the bumper, that should help keep things warm, but don't complete cut off air, that would be bad too.

As for your A/C, unless you have automatic climate control, your compressor shouldn't cycle. A good way to tell if you have automatic climate control is by looking at the controls. Manual climate control has 4 levers and 1 button for the A/C. Automatic climate control has 3 buttons and a little door. Only on automatic climate control should the A/C cycle. Don't worry about burning out your compressor. In fact you should run it every 2 weeks just to keep the system lubricated. The a/c's in our cars are one of the best ones around. Mine has been running for 16 years and never had to be serviced. It blow ice cold that I have to turn it off so I don't freeze my hands off.

S

 

another possible reason that you are running extremely cool is that maybe your thermostat is stuck open. We also have a discovery which is currently suffering from this problem.. even with the heat on the air is barely warm.

 

well i had the this problem with my other maxima, she would take literally forever to warm up especially in cold weather. but to fix this i got an idea from the school bus's and got a piece of card board cut it to size then carved a 12' tall x 8-9' wide diamond i the middle. solved my problem promptly.

~mike

 

well i had the this problem with my other maxima, she would take literally forever to warm up especially in cold weather. but to fix this i got an idea from the school bus's and got a piece of card board cut it to size then carved a 12' tall x 8-9' wide diamond i the middle. solved my problem promptly.

~mike