I have a 93 Maxima GXE with about 110,000 miles. It ran really great until about a week ago when it started to idle really rough, miss or hesitate on acceleration and show a significant loss of power.

I took it to an independent mechanic who I've used for several years who, the best I can determine, has always been competent and fair. He said that the problem was a bad injector. He replaced the injector and at the same time replaced the plugs, changed the oil and put in a new air filter.

Although the major symptoms have significantly improved the car still exhibits the following traits that it never did before:


1. Intermittently the car idles somewhat rough, almost like a slight "miss" every now and then that you can feel in the steering wheel, see on the tachometer (sometimes)and also hear. It seems to get better after driving (but not always)and then after you stop and start again, its starts idling rough again.

2. It has a good bit less power and pep than it did before the repairs. Although its not exactly weak, it really seems to have the acceleration of our 4 cylinder imports rather than the really fast Maxima 6 cylinder power I had come to enjoy.

The mechanic said that the "throttle body" might need to be cleaned but suggested that we first try some of the over the counter injector cleaners. We've done that, but with no real improvement.

Before taking it back to the mechanic, I thought I'd check the list to see if you had any similar experiences, ideas or suggestions.

Thanks.

 

Almost sudden loss of power and rough idleing could mean that you have a broken motor mount. But since you are seeing it on the tach, it could be that you need to clean the throttle body. You can try a can of throttle body cleaner and see how much it helps you. Directions are on the can. It's only $3.XX so it's worth a try before taking it back to the mechanic.

 

Could be the O2 sensor, but cleaning the TB is a good cheap, easy preliminary step.