Hi.

I have a 1990 Maxima that really does not like the cold. When ever it is wet and cold, Mainly in winter, my car starts missing very bad. I have had this happen in the summer a couple of times, but it was always after we had had a lot of rain.

When this happens, I usually put the tranny in second and let the engine run at a higher rpm. It will then sometimes go back to running fine after a few miles like that. I have taken this car to nissan a couple of years ago for the same thing and they could find nothing wrong. (because it ran fine when there) I have also checked the obvious stuff like cracked distributor, wires...etc. Has anybody else had this problem?

Thanks.....

BTW: Sorry if this thread has been posted B4. The site would not let me search, so I posted instead.

 

Did you try new sparplug cables ?

 

i would have to go with new wires, also go with a new alternator. my car would miss when started and when it was cold, but i replaced my alternaotr and all seems fine

if your not gettin enough amps, only a few of the sparks will fire. the engine is trying to keep itself goin like a default mode. that why when you have driven at a higher rpm, the alternator has had more time to charge the battery and is supplying more amps

 

As we know nothing of your past mantainance history, we have to guess.

Moisture under the distributor cap. Or dirty/old spark plug wires.

 

I have replaced all of this, alternator, wires..... all within the last year. One thing I forgot to add in the original thread was in comes with simply going through a puddle. Then, all over a sudden, she misses. Is there something under the engine that could not like getting wet?

 

Do you have all your splash gaurds in place?

 

I do not have all of these in place.... when I bought that car 4 years ago it was half broken, so I tore it off. Is there anywhere you know of that sells these units cheap? The car is so old it would suck to a lot of money into splash guards. Thanks.... I had never even thought about it. What do you think is getting wet? Would the alternator act up if wet?

 

Got no clue what it could be, but just get the guards off of one that is being parted out,
check the classified threads

 

distributor?

I know I had allot of problems in cold weather last summer until I changed the distributor.

 

Check o2 wires at sensor and plug end. Mine developed near stalling for a few minutes after running thru snow or deep puddles. I think caused by wires for sensor. I changed sensor but it's too soon to be sure if fixed as it only happened 3X in a month. Plug end of sensor wires were hanging down below pipe (not replaced right by a mechanic). Another posting recently had stripped insulation at the sensor end exposed causing same problem. I really don't think water is getting in your distributor, if it did I think it would take longer to dry out.

 

I had my O2 sensor replaced about a year ago.... my wires are hanging below the pipe as well. But I have had this problem before that was replaced too. What did you use to seal the wire ends... some kind of electrical grease?

 

My problem (I Hope) was the plug end of the wires was not snapped into the metal above the plug, just hanging loose. The wires at the O2 end are still clearly visable under the car but not the plug. I hope the problem was caused by water getting into the plug. If you can see your plug without crawing under the car it is not snapped into the metal. I had original o2 sensor and car was running rich so I changed the sensor hopping to solve two problems. We have not had heavy rain or snow since I did it about 10 days ago.

 

Dielectric grease works well. At any autostore. Cheap too.