Tried search, but didn't find anything pertinent -

'94 GXE auto, 67k miles.

When parked or stopped at traffic light, I can feel the car vibrate more than before. The tach needle is stable and normal ~600-700, but the steering wheel/body emits those shakes. When the car moves, it's hard to feel it any more.

Anyone have similar problem? Engine mount, perhaps?

 

I would lean toward engine mounts, but at 67K miles?

Check your exhaust system out. Sometimes a loose hanger or heat shield can make the whole car seem like its falling apart.

 

You got it..check engine and tranny mounts.

 

change the air filter if you have a drop-in, or clean your throttle body, or run some injector cleaner through your car. that helped me a lot.

 

Do a throttle body clean. It's pretty cheap and it really helps.

http://www.exclusiveatlanta.com/maxi...dy%20vg30e.htm

If that doesn't help, check the resistance of your injectors, this may be the culprit. I bought my 92 GXE in Feb 1997 with 65K miles on it. It had the same problem that you described.

When I get out of your car and listen to the exhaust note from the muffler, I would hear a random misfire every once in a while.

I tried changing plugs, air filters, etc.. with no luck on getting rid of the vibration. The only thing that helped some was the throttle body clean, but I still would hear that random misfire.

Since it ran fine otherwise and passed emissions just fine, I just drove it and drove it I did.

81k miles later, at 146K miles, the #6 fuel injector said good bye. So I checked all the fuel injectors, found that #4 was also not doing so well (high resistance - 39 ohms, where as normal range is 10-14 ohms).

So I replaced 2 injectors (#4 and #6). Actually changing the injectors isn't too hard, you just have to remove a lot of stuff (like the intake system) to get to it.

I put it back together, my car runs idles better now than it ever did. The exhaust note is a nice constant note with no more misfires.

Good Luck.

 

I has vibration in similar situations because my cooling fan assembly has no been fastened at the bottom. Plus one of fans had a broken blade.
Check it.

 

Tom - I'll check the throttle body, but I haven't been much of a DIY person, mainly due to lack of time. (With two young kids, it's hard to spend a lot of time in the garage... guess I could do it at night, but rather not.) How long should I plan for throttle body cleaning, in addition to one hour mentioned to clean off the old gasket?

Follow-up question on misfire - is it just from the exhaust you hear the misfire, or could you tell it from the tach? My car's tach does jump a little bit every once in a while during idle, but haven't listened to the exhaust. It almost feels like momentary fuel starvation, and comes right back to normal. Did you have the same thing?

Btw, the instruction is excellent! Better than some of the Volvo instructions I've seen for my other car. Whoever did it (you, Tom?), my hats off to you.

Also, thanks to other posters as well. I'll check all that was mentioned. I like this forum a lot.

-Mike

 

It was another forum member that made the website.

You can probably do the throttle body cleaning (minus the scraping) in about 30 minutes or less to be conservative. The gasket scraping is the part you'll hate.

In fact, when I did my fuel injectors, I actually took the extra time to remove my intake manifold with the throttle body intact so that I didn't have to do this again. This particular gasket is self-adhesive on one side and after 10-years, it has stuck really really well. I used the blade on my leatherman as it was the sharpest blade I had.
If anybody else has an easier way on removing this gasket, it would be great.

My tach has remained steady the whole time I owned the car. So you may want to check your ignition system out too (spark plugs, caps, rotor, plugs, wires). BTW, I still have the original plug wires from 1992 on my car, the rest of the stuff I replace as needed. I only use genuine Nissan stuff.

I could only hear the misfire from the exhaust when my car had the problem.

 

I paid more attention to the symptom yesterday, I don't think I have 'misfire' that Tom experienced with his car. The extra vibration happens ONLY when the car is stopped 'in gear'. In park or neutral, I don't feel any extra vibration. Again, once I start moving, it feels normal & smooth.

Only in gear... gulp... transmission related?? Perhaps tranny mount as one person suggested... but at 67k miles?