Hey everyone. As you can probably tell from my username, I own an altima. But I also have a 94 maxima in the family. It just died on my sister earlier today. Just died, no sputtering nothing. My first question is, my sister took it into two shops, and one was the Nissan dealership. Both of them told her that she needs a new timing BELT. Now, to my knowledge they have CHAINS not belts. But I could be wrong. Which do the 94 Maxima GXE's have? Belts or Chains? And my second question is, what could be the cause of this break down. What are the possibilities? I know ignition and fuel could be a couple. But anything else? Any help is appreciated.

-AltyPrince

 

i think the gxe has belts and SE has chains....

 

Yea I just did a search and found out she has a belt. Great, so now what are the possibilities of the break down?

 

If it hasn't been taken into a shop at Nissans regular maintenance intervals, that would definitly be the cause of your problem. You need to have the timing belt changed every 60k miles. If it wasn't changed, that's the reason it broke - driver neglect . Here's a link from Nissan: http://www.nissandriven.com/owning/V...,9422,,00.html

 

Make sure the water pump is done, along with the thermostate while it in the shope.

 

Um, what was the car doing when it broke? Accelerating hard? Cruising on the highway? Hopefully it was idling or under a low-load condition. These are interference engines, and when the timing belt breaks, the pistons will hit the valves. Hopefully they didn't hit them too hard. You might have a rebuild in your future!

Yes, VG engines have belts, the VE engines have chains. VEs can only be found in 92-94 SE models. Good luck