Hey all. Here is the problem (its a little long, but please read it).

Last week I changed my oil at a local nissan dealership. They told me that my brake pads needed to be replaced. So I brought my car to my regular mechanic and got them repaired.

I picked up my car yesterday evening and filled my empty gas tank at petro canada station with 91 octane (I had sunoco 94 before). As I was driving up to my school that is aproximatley 100 km away, the rpms start to drop and even though I had my foot on the gas pedal. The car had no power and was not responsive to the throttle. SO I floored it and it took off as if there was no problem. But soon the rps were shooting up and down and the car felt like it was gonna stall. 5-10 min later the symptoms went away and then came back another 10 minutes later as I was getting off the Highway.

I was not driving the car hard or anything, but I do recall felling this car "shaking" like a month ago, but it was not event close to as bad as now and at that time it lasted about 10-15 seconds and went away until yesterday.

I drove over to the store today and replaced the air filter and added a fuel injector cleaner to my still nearly full gas tank but that didn't help. These symprtoms were worse than yesteradys.

And now for the million dollar question: WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY CAR AND HOW DO I FIX IT?????????? I ran a search on this board and suggestions hinted to a bad fuel injector to a dirty fuel pump: here is the original thread.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....cking+stalling

Could the dirty gas that I filled up with cause this problem ??? Any help would be appreciated, because I'd like to have my car repaired so I can go back home sooner than later.

thanks

Mike C

 

Sounds like you could have a fuel pump goin' bad. Does it happen on hills. Are the plug wires in good shape, if bad they can cause missing and low power under load. Also check the plugs.

 

A few things I would start off with...

Check if your fuel injectors are ticking... if you can, do this when your kocking symtom appears.
I use a long screwdriver... just place the tip where the injector harness meets the injector rail for each injector and put your ear to the driver handle. If one is quieter than the others or not ticking, then you have a problem.

When was the last time the fuel filter was replaced?
spark plugs?
spark plug wires?
distributor? - you can inspect this by taking the cap off and see if it's fouled or the cap is cracked.

 

When a car starts to run bad after you put gas in, it probably means that there was crap/water in the gas and now the fuel filter is clogged. Change that filter first, add "dry gas" (alcohol to absorb the water) and hope the rest of the fuel system/injectors aren't clogged.

 

ok, well I brought in the car today to my dealership. They're gonna call and tell me what's wrong, and stuff..........

I'll keep you guys posted....and THANKS!!!!!!! for your help

 

The mechsnic called me up and said after he hooked the car up to the computer that there was nothing wrong. He suggested spark plugs, wires, distributor.

I've got this e-mail from my friend's dad who is a machanic and this is what he suggested:

Possibilities;
1.) EGR valve sticking open (this is easy to fix). The Exhaust Gas
Recirculation valve is meant to open and allow some exhaust back into
the intake .... but not at idle otherwise the engine will sputter and
stall. At high RPMs the problem is masked. Take it off and clean it so it moves freely.
2.) Torque converter lock up solenoid (if the car has an automatic
transmission). The solenoid is meant to activate at highway speeds
locking up the transmission to the engine like a manual trans clutch not allowing any slippage. If the solenoid sticks on all the time it makes the car act like a standard transmission with the clutch always engaged. Try this - if
at a stop and if shifting the transmission to neutral makes the problem go away you have identified this as the problem.
3.) Fuel filter clogged
4.) Air filter clogged
5.) IAC - Idle control valve malfunction . It might be making the car
run rich (black smoke from the exhaust) all the time.
6.) Fuel pump - I doubt it - If it was bad (I assume the car is
injected) the car would sputter when fuel demand was greatest...but sometimes they do strange things

Any comments are welcome

 

i'm no mechanic, but i'd say have the valvetrain looked at. the exhaust recirculation system is likely the culprit, tho.

 

Ok the mechanic called and told me that no. 2 vavle is not responding. They are gonna take off something and determine if its the vavle or the electrical circuit that controls it.

That's all for now.

Mike

 

How much do injectors cost and how hard is it to replace them?

 

oem injectors aren't too expensive, but relatively hard to install.

anything that involves the fuel system would make me very nervous.

 

I had my #5 cylinder go out on my 92 max. I took it to 3 different mechanics of which all 3 said I had a valve problem (2 said #5 was bad, 1 said #1 and #5 cylinders were bad) of which 2 of the mechanics said they DID test the fuel injector but in fact they didnt physically test or inspect by sound or just straight out lied.

They were wrong. It was #5 injector gone completely bad and a couple others just needed their contacts cleaned (they were corroded). I figured this out by doing a resistance test on the injectors and also using the ticking sound test. I'm guessing they only check if the electric signal is working up to the injector but not the injector itself. So, my advice is, if they say you need a valve job, check your injectors just in case, before fixing something that costly.

 

they are about ~120$ oem. They come in black and blue.

I had one injector replaced but the mechanics messed up the job. They put in the wrong color injector and on top of that, the o-ring was pinched and leaking fuel. I ended up deciding I should do it myself. Took me a good 6 hours+ because it was my first time and I had to run around for the right tools. I've heard dealers can do it in less than a hour. Thanks the the guys on this forum it really wasn't that bad.. you just have to remember what parts/hoses go back where... I numbered them just in case.

 

Ok so I got my car back today from the local Nissan dealership caller "Waterloo Nissan" in Ontario, and I'll mention that they had excellent service overall. It gives me assurance that my car is in somewhat decent shape cause a CAA authorized facility checked it out.

I got my sparks replaced and wires (they needed to be done anyway). They said that all they had to do to the injector is clean the connection. This set me back a bit over $200 canadian.

I guess so.

Thank for everyones input.

Mike C

 

that is a very DIY job, but at least they solved your problem.

 

HOLD EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so i was driving my car around today and I felt less power and while I was in park a little time after hitting the ingition, the rpms slightly rose and fell almost to the point of stalling......

I'll do this

mmmm and I'll call the dealership too.

does anyone know where the egr valve is???????

thanks

 

I put fuel line anti-freeze that included water remover and the car still feels sluggish all the time.

The idle rpms seem fine and I haven't had any weird rpm jumps, but the car is unresponsive and definatley sluggish.

Sometimes the accelerator can be pressed substntially and yet the car hesitates and slowly accelerates. This problem started on sunday of this week after I filled up my gas tank, so the fuel might be dirty???? I don't know.

I'm taking it to the mechanic tomorrow, but they seem to take the trial and error approach, cause they don't know what the exact problm is and they've already want to mess with my fuel injectors and that's $$$.


WOW!!!!!

 

According to the 94 factory manual on the VG30 its to the left of the positive battery terminal if your facing the front of the car. On the VE30 it is just to the left of the master cylinder fill cap.

 

So I called and I brought my car back to the dealership at 5pm yesterday (they close at 6). Once I get there I'm told to comeback tomorrow, only when my problem is occuring, cause the mechanics can't find anything wrong with my car. I got into an argument with the service department manager. The service manager started saying that she didn't tell me that doing the tune up would solve the problem she only said that it "might" solve my problem. So I'm ****ed off cause this cost me twice as much as it should have, thanks to their incompetent attitudes.

So I get there today and the bottom line was the the oxygen sensor was shot, so I got all that other crap replaced fo no reason. The dealership seemed to be in a mess from the beginning and from what I saw, they were trying to solve the problem by trial and error.

My question to the manager "why would I come in to the dealership, get a tune up done and not expect my car to work properly?"

WOW what a hassle, I'm never going there again.

thanks all

 

damn dude... that sucks ***... but im sure there was alot of pm going on there too

i recently had my alternator go bad.. it wouldnt charge the battery much at all and headlight would pretty much kill the engine... i replaced it... and wow.. what a difference.... untill.. the new alternator went bad (warrenty thank god )

but for about 5 days i was running back and forth on JUST battery
if i turned on my headlights.. it would react like you spoke... just wouldnt kick in.. not enough power to make the coil spark the spark plug.... finally i got it all working

glad you did too