So I was trying to pass some trucks on the highway, and what happened next will haunt me for the rest of my life. In short, my rpm's went up to about 6200 (92 GXE with 70K miles). Shortly thereafter, my car gave up, and I had to pull over to the shoulder and have it towed.

I haven't contacted any dealerships yet and have not tried to start it. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions here first.
1) Is my engine destroyed?
2) Is my max really dead?
3) How much will it cost to fix?

I appreciate any help anyone can give me. I really do need it. Thanks.

 

Me thinks your T-belt gave up the ghost. Sorry to hear it though. Good Luck!

 

1) don't have much to go by here....
2) try starting it since you haven't...doesn't hurt to see what's going on...find out what noises are heard...if the starter is clicking etc...
3) we don't know whats wrong so we can't say how much its going to cost

basically we need some more detail as to what is going on to assist a correct prognosis...

 

but not on my max...was a buick regal...redlined in first..before it could shift, motor went silent. Siezed up tight...
It had a timing chain tho...if your timing belt broke it'll be like it siezed cuz the pistons would hit the valves and essentially 'lock' it up.
Then again..same thing happened to my SHO Taurus...all it was was i knocked a connector loose during the hard driving. So could be new motor time..or could be wiring...sadly enough its proly the first one tho.
Did u hear any odd engine klankings or noises before it died? Or did u have the stereo up like i did with that before-mentioned regal

 

I have started my car and everything seems fine as usual. There is no rough idling or funny noises. When I put it into drive and push on the gas a little, I get NO response...just rpm's. The speedometer stays at 0. Same thing in the lower gears too. Under the hood, there are no weird noises.

What a couple of things that COULD go wrong in my case??
So far people have only mentioned timing belt or serious engine probs. When I take it to the dealer, I just wanna make sure they don't take me for all I'm worth.

I will continue to investigate and report. Thanks for the help guys.

BTW, my car kicked azz. {heavy sigh}

<|._.|>

 

Well if you car is running fine & you put the car in drive & get no responce my guess would be that your tranny died on you

 

you probably broke something good in your tranny then. I have no idea about automatics, they are too complicated Smell any burned tranny fluid when you try to go?

 

Dead trannie..mine did this at 174k...wait for it to cool overnight and tomorrow it may go into gear for like 20 seconds then go completely out again. Either way...you have fallen victim to what a lot of max owners do--dead trannie.
Expect 600-1k for a used one(not including installation) or like 1600+ for rebuild + install. I got mine rebuilt and installed myself for 1000...but not a shadetree job really IMO.

 

Thanks ya'll.

Will look for a tran now. And then prolly tear it up soon. (NOT!)

cya

 

well pull the tranny dipstick and see the fluid. what color is it? smell burnt? metal shavings in the fluid?

 

well when my tranny died my mechanic was quite stunned that my fluid was very clean....I had just had it changed about 8k miles or so before, but he said it wasn't dirty or anything.

 

Sounds like you have the same problem I have with mine now, except that I was just sitting, then put the car into gear. And the funny thing about that (if anything here can be considered FUNNY) was that 1) I just had all my fluids changed 3 weeks ago, and 2) I just bought a new engine at the same time. Go figure. Guess ghostmax and I will be on the lookout for a tranny now.

 

I called a Nissan specialist today and he told me to check the tranny fluid and add a coupla quarts. Well it was low so I added 2 quarts and will wait a day. The color was brownish but didn't smell; there were no metal shavings.

What is the life of the tranny? I bought the car used from an old lady (read: calm driver) at around 63K mi. She had the timing belt, etc changed before I bought it. So I guess my question would be, Did my hard driving push the tranny over the limits, or was it its time to go? Prolly the former.

Will investigate more.

 

70K is a bit early but these autos are becoming notorious for failures...things just happen...

 

especially since i think 92 was the first year of the (supposedly) stronger trans. Maybe the jump from being driven very slowly to being driven hard just was too much for it. Max's are at least better than ford taurus's...the early 90's tauri were prone to dead trannies at milages as low as 20k

 

Obviously there is something wrong if your transmission shifted at 6,200rpms in fully automatic mode. Now, if your switched it manually, that is a different story. I've gone over the 6,000rpm redline many times in my 90' SE shifting the automatic tranny manually. Well, all I have to say is, the car still starts and revvs with 240,xxx miles on it :-)

 

Hmm...yeah..mine will go right to redline and then shift..maybe the trannie had already started dying when he floored it...if it was malfunctioning then the motor would probably rev that high(if it was slipping ect..)