Is the Dealership telling the truth?
 

New info on this thread:
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....3&page=2&pp=30

Dealership called me and said the reason it wont start is because the starter is pulling too much power and draining the battery causing the engine to flood and confusing the computer, thus not starting.

Their estimate is 630 bucks to get the car to start. I know i can change the starter and battery my self but I fail to see how the dealership could be correct in their assessment. They have not been able to get it to start, nor can they guarantee that replacing the starter and battery will work. Any ideas/thoughts?

It's possible you have a failed crank position sensor. They have been known to fail without throwing codes. Happened to a few on here including my buddies I30. Took us a week to figure out why the car simply would not start.

Is the crank position sensor different from the camshaft position sensor? Nissan tech told me if the camshaft position sensor was bad the plugs wouldnt be sparking. And we verfied that the plugs are sparking.

Lots of technical words but have absolutely no real meaning. I don't know what the problem is, but when I hear nonsense like the above, I would walk away and go get a 2nd, 3rd opinion from other places.

Sam

I agree with 95MAXSE...I d look into the second and third opinion...The way I see it ,is that if the battery is good enough to turn the engine,the story with takin too much power is BS. Now ,if the starter is good and turns the engine , it should start. Is hard to identify the problem in this situation. And on top of that ,after you empty your pocket (or your bank acct)they cant even guarantee that the problem is fixed...And because the starter is an electrical part, (and there is no return on electrical components) you have no choice but check with other places out there. I hope that your problem would be taken care of...

So I went and read all the posts again...It looks that your plugs were wet...That means that the car is getting fuel . Maybe would be a good ideea to get some NGK copper and put them in. You said that you left the plugs out overnite. A new set of coppers are cheap ,and easy to replace. You said that they spark...so what would be the reason that they don t fire ? Hmmm...
I don t think the starter is bad, if you can turn it for 20 seconds..as you said. I am thinking if you could tow the car and try to start it that way...( if you got a 5 speed car). This is a hard one...

Talked directly to the tech who diagnosed the car, he said the starter is pulling too much power so the computer is not functioning during start and just dumping fuel into the cyls. He said it's very common and 99% sure that a starter will fix the problem. I dunno if i belive him but i guess i'll get the car back and put in a new starter tonight, (or maybe have autozone test the current one) :)

It's the crankshaft position sensor, I can assure you that much. Its in front of your tranny towards the front of the car close to the ground.

When i took the car back from the dealership today the starter was frozen. It was not frozen when i took it in (since we have been trying to start it all week!) I'm not very happy about that. Bought a new lifetime one from autozone for 140 bucks. Installed it. Car still wont start. I even pulled the plugs cleaned them off and put them back in (what the dealership said they would do as a bonus for the 630 dollar charge).

I checked both crankshaft position sensors.

The one underneath the belt i removed and cleaned and reinstalled, was fairly grimey with oil residue etc...
The one on the side of the tranny i pulled and it had a small amount of metal shavings stuck to it, cleaned it off, reinstalled.

I dont know what to do at this point. Start throwing parts at the car? (meaining start replacing sensors etc...)

What does Nissan say now that you have a new starter and it still doesn't start?

You probably got a crappy starter from autozone it happens there al re-mans to begin with. Another thing you might want to check is your ignition fuse i've had that go when i had my maxima.

The starter seems fine, as it's turning the engine over. I assume, of course, the engine is turning over fast enough. As for the ignition fuse, if that were to go the starter wouldn't turn at all, no?

Well the dealer has been working on the car for 6 hours so far and has not identified the problem and i'm starting to worry!!!! How could a fuel filter change/TB cleaining go so wrong!!!!

Dealer has had the car since last thurdsay night and still cant find the problem!!! I'm running out of confidence.

you changed the fuel filter? Did you remove the fuse to the fuel pump, if so did you replace said fuse? sorry i don't mean to imply, but sometimes i forget things.

Yes fuel pump fuse was removed during the installation, and has ben replaced. plugs come out wet, and it has full pressure at the rails so we know it's got plenty of fuel.

Well I just got the car back from the dealer and it's running!!! :)

They said the injecters were clogged and it needed and injector cleaining service. Now the car has never had the injectors cleaned and I'm skeptical that they didnt just plug a wire back in and then clean my injectors to get some money but they only charged me 100 bucks for the injector service and and full service oil change, so i guess i'm ok with that.

So what's the moral of this whole story? I have no idea. I'm not sure how they cleaned the injectors without the car starting. I have no idea what could have caused them to clog after replacing the fuel filter. But i do know this: I wont be doing any preventative maintenance any more on the car. :)

Dude! Don't say that. if anything, you should get the messege to do ALL your own maintance.

Dealers and Mechanics (in general) are out to make money. some will be honest, some won't be.

ifyou do preventive maintance, you will SAVE money. trust me. these cars need a little attention and new fluids and they will out last you!

You haven't been following the thread, I guess. :D

His 'preventative maintenance' is was caused his trouble to begin with!

That sucks that there's no definitive conclusion here...I was dying to know what the problem really was.

[edit]I agree, however, that you should still do your own maintenance; it is a rarity that things go this wrong.[/edit]