my maxima, given to me by my dad after he got a new one had been sitting around in the garage for about 6 months, rarely started, and when we took it in to get a tune up before i began starting to drive it, one of the cylinders wasnt firing. the mechanic replaced all the spark plugs, but still it would not fire. he believes that it is the computer that is having the trouble. what do you all think? any help would be appreciated, thanks.

 

Coil pack? do you know which cylinder? did you check your CEL codes?

 

i do not know which cylinder it is, my dad has been talking to the guy, but i will have him ask when he gets a chance and have him check the CEL codes and coil packs also, thanks

 

It could be a faulty fuel injector as well. You need spark & fuel to make a cylinder fire. Which one is really missing? Pull all the spark plugs, and look closely at them. The cylinder that isn't firing a spark will be wet from the unburnt gas. The cylinder that isn't getting any fuel will have a spark plug that looks like new still.

 

thanks for all the help so far, im going to have my dad go talk to the guy, ill keep you all updated. if anyone has anything else to add it will be welcomed.

 

ok update time. we talked to the guy. it is cylinder 5 that is not firing, but it is not a problem with the spark plugs or fuel injectors, it is with the ecm. he says that maybe a mouse chewed threw one of the wires, and now the ecm has no connection to the sparkplug, injector or cylinder. luckily he thinks it happened at his place, so i wont have to pay, but still have to wait for my car. do you guys no how i would get a part to fix this? such as a new wire or ecm?

 

ecm, u do not need because only a connector connects to it. so if this is true i guess he can rewire it or reconnect hte wires. but since u don't have to pay for it, let him do it for free until it gets fixed

 

he already tried reconnecting it, but it did something to the ecm. we trust the guy and he knows what he is doing. ill ask him about rewiring the whole thing. thanks.

 

Maybe he can get a used harness from a junkyard. Replacing the wiring harness shouldn't be _that_ difficult of a job.

 

i'll ask him, thanks.

 

I don't buy that.....

You might want to rethink that trust.....

The signal wire for the spark and the signal wire for the injector are two completely different sets of wires. What are the chances the mouse just happened to get the two sets of wires that control the different devices on the SAME cylinder?

Sorry, I don't buy it, thats not whats wrong with your car.

 

makes sense...i'll have to look into that. i plan on going to take a look myself asap. you say the wires should be able to be replaced easily? thanks for the help.

 

he replaced the wires and all is good now, thanks to all who helped

 

When I was changing the plugs before, I remember one of them was wet and I was wondering why. So it's the injector for that cylinder? Any ballpark figure on repair? Is it easy to do it myself?

Maybe that's why I'm getting 16-18 MPG

 

how can you tell that a cylinder wasnt firing if there were no cel codes?.. just wondering.

 

free bump

 

I'm just going with what the mechanic said. He knows his stuff tho so I dont doubt him.

 

I had 3 codes before. 1 was the TCM to ECM problem and the other two were fuel injection problems. They reset the ECU and the codes haven't shown up since.

I just remember one of my plugs being really wet and one being kind of wet. The other 4 plugs were dry and looked like normal use on them.

 

if a cylinder is not firing would that cause your car to smoke?

 

Not really....