1999 Maxima SE - I have recently noticed that the engine seems to miss when stopped at a light idling - the engine seems to run fine once throttle is applied.

The Check Engine light has not come on. Does the shudder/miss at stop indicate a bad coil? I've looked around and noticed a number of people have had to replace these prematurely.

Seeing as I can't search - could someone post and threads that may be appropriate?

Thanks to all for your help.
Poly

 

99s have a coil pack problem You'll probably have to replace them. You can pick up new ones for $50 each or you can pick up a used set from eBay or the Classified section (95s and 96s had good coil packs)

 

Jatan,

Does the miss/surge at stop indicate a bad coil?

Thanks.

 

does this happen to you all the time or only intermittenly?
does your rpm bounce below 500 and bounce back up?
when you say miss do you also feel bump or bumps?

 

When I'm at a stop I do feel the bump or surge. The tach doesn't seem to move - if it does it is marginal - idles at about 700.

It seems to be intermittent, but is happening a bit more recently. Also, it might just be me, but I think it happens more when it is damp. It also doesn't seem to matter if the car is warmed up or not.

Thanks.

 

Ok i don't know if you smoking some drugs, but can you please tell me where i can pick up those coil pack for 50 bucks each????

 

Damnit, so mine are going aswell.... I just knew those bump feelings at stoplights werent normal.

 

Here is a question for the maxima Guru's on maxima.org, Do anyone know that how can you make the Coil Pack's god bad so the dealer ship change them for me. I do have that stupid extended warranty and that does cover coil pack i did a research on it, I don't feel like paying for them.......

 

BlueC,

Would you agree that the bump at stoplights is due to coil packs? I don't want to go replacing these if they are not the prob.

Thanks.

 

I hate coil packs. Well, atleast the ones in my car.

 

Yes I would, I cant think of anything else causing this.

 

Would a bad coil pack make the engine vibrate a little, not a misfire, I am taking about a little shake in the engine, or is that caused by a bad engine mount?

 

Are you using premium fuel (91+ octane)? It's probably misfiring or something. The engine misfires b/c of the following: bad plug, bad coil pack, or dead injector. Since yours is a 99, I'm guessing it's b/c of the coil packs.

Not sure where you live, but if you visit the Regional section http://forums.maxima.org/forumdisplay.php?f=30 and ask someone local to you, they might let you switch the coil packs for a minute to see if that's the problem.

 

I always use 92 octane. Thanks for the suggestions - I may change out the plugs first to eliminate that - cheaper than coil packs.

 

IIIIIIIIII have the same problem and it just sux a$$, when the car is in neutral and its just idling, it would come down to about 600 rpm and it would bump and it would seem like it would stall but then the rpms would jump to about 1100 and then after a while it would go at it again. if my coil packs are bad...how can i check to be for sure. some one PLEASE help.

 

Jerry Rome gives 25% discount and those are about $55 each. There is another dealer giving 30% discount so the coil packs should be about $50 each unless that promo stopped

 

I always put premium gas in my car, Well I am sure it is not misfiring because It would run like crap, its not running like ****, but instead their is slight vibration feeling from the engine, i feel it when i am sitting in the car, it is very hard to explain. its like comes and goes, may be you understand this 1111100000 and then its smooth. but it does that every couple sec. when i open my hood, i see the engine shakes a little but definitely not misfire, because i know misfire the engine kind of bounce around it looks really bad i have seen misfire before. I have been to Nissan many times, they tell me this, "Its the nature of the Beast" and there is nothing wrong with my car, I don't know, I Don't know how it sepose to be? i Sat in other maxima like 2000-2001 and i could not feel a thing, but i don't know if the 4th gen maxima sepose to be like that. when i have my hand the steering wheel and i am sitting at the light i feel a slight vibration at the steer wheel, i know the engine is running, but at the 2000 maxima, i could feel a thing, it felt like the engine was not running at all. and when the cooling fan's kick in the i could feel more vibration. so i don't know what is the Deal, no Engine light or anything like that, I have a Injen Intake and Stillen y-pipe. i have done all the necessary tune up, fuel Injunction cleaning, throttle body, engine flush, tranny flush, spark plugs PCV valve (major tune up). I have changed them all, spend a lots of money but I never got that wired vibration to go away. so i don't know if it is may be couple of weak coil pack causing that, or its bad electronic engine mount that comes with 99 maxima Other then that the car runs very well strong pick up. But like I said i don't know what that could be. so if you have any recommendation please let me know, i appreciate it thanks.

 

Almost 99.89999% sure your problem is coil pack related. I had the same problem for about two-three weeks, first it started with a slight misfire at stop lights for a couple weeks. Then it progressivly got worse to the point where my tach would start to bump to the misfire, before it wouldn't. Then while driving on the highway I punched it a couple times, at WOT it got a check engine light and checked my comp to find out its a multiple misfire.....drove on that for another week....it wouldn't alway misfire at WOT but about 1/20 times it would(@WOT), so after a couple of those my ECU finally picked up on the misfire and was able to locate it to #3, relaced that then repeated that cycle to find out #1 was also going bad. After replacing the one the computer diagnosed as the bad one (#3) I unplugged each coil one by one to find out which one made the engine run the same, thus showing which one was not firing correctly.

In my Case only the top coils were going bad (the ones closer to the windsheild) 1, 3, turned out to be bad so I thought why not just get #5 swaped out too since only the top ones seemed to be bad?

Anyone else experience only 1,3,5 misfires, I hope 2,4,6 are not gonna fail on me now ?

Incase you might want to know Poly the coils are numbered
1,3,5 closer to the windsheild
2,4,6 closer to the radiator

Also some people will say you can test them with a multimeter but I could not diagnose it with three diffrent sets of voltage testers switching around all variables, It was only a waste of time. But DONT waste your cash on all new ones unless you got too much money in the bank. (50$ is a low-ball, its more like 65$ each at the cheapest) You probably only have one or two that are going bad.

P.S. - Another tell tail sign was that I could not get my Idle back to 700 while in 'D' with the Idle Control screw all the way out.

Hope this helps you guys, dont get frustraited with the coils, once you find out the bad one you'll be grinning every time you step on the peddle again in no time!!!!

 

Xugg,

Good post - thanks for the info.

You mentioned to try to find which coil was causing the problem - will they all go bad eventually (i.e. factory coils are faulty - replacements have fault fixed)?

Is there any risk to push it until the ECU throws a code? I don't have extra $ for this stuff, but I'd hate to risk further repairs if I know I can solve it once and for all by replacing all of them - goes back to the idea that all factory coils are weak.

Thanks again for your info...

 

well I don't think its bad, but if you have some kind of extended warranty you should waite until they triger a CEL.
I want to find out how to make them go bad, so the dealer ship changes them for me, because I have extended warranty that would cover that. I just have to pay 100 bucks so I want atleast 3 bad ones ..

 

Thaks for the Info, I wish I knew how to make the coil pack go bad, so the dealer ship changes them. 100 bucks for the damm warranty I got, but it don't pay if only one is bad...

 

Like I said before, find someone local to you and swap the coil packs 1 by 1 to find out which is the bad one. If you can't afford new ones, then you can buy used ones (check the Classified section or eBay).

You can probably buy a set of used ones and swap them 1 by 1 to see which one is the dying coil pack on your car. If you buy a set of 6 used coil packs, and lets say you have 2 that are dying, just keep the other 4 in your car as spares incase the others start dying

 

Go to the Classified section of the forum and say you want dead coil packs. It's probably cheaper to buy a set of used ones and swap them 1 by 1 to find the bad coil pack.

 

Anytime you have a stumble or miss definately check your coils. I just finished replacing the front three Hanshin (Korean POS) coils and popped in new mitsubishi units. Car is running smooth as silk. Will replace the other three as soon as the extra cash comes. Unfortunately the 99's have lousy coils but it's a small price to pay considering the performance of the car.

 

i had the sh!tty 99 coils and i had the engine hiccuping at red lights and stop signs with a little bump and quick rpm drop every once in a while.

so the remedy -- new mutsubishi coils from courtesy nissan 56-58 each with maxima.org discount. and now my engine is as smooth as silk and i got .2 sec back in my 1/4 mi.

i'm enjoying the new mitsubishi coils.

99 Hanshin ignition coils own you.

 

I hear ya viper...time to rock-n-roll. Can't wait to replace the other three.

 

Thanks for everybody's help - I'm off to check out coil packs...

Poly.

 

Does anyone have a link to instructions on how to replace coils?

Thanks.

 

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=254238 Go to the ENGINE section and read the how to for changing the spark plugs (3rd one on the engine how to list)

Basically, you unplug the coil pack connector and remove the 2 screws. Take out the coil pack and put in the new one You should see how much the dealer charges labor for this

 

What about me? I have a hesitation at like 3500 rpms at WOT. It happens in every gear except 1st. I don't get a hiccup at idle, and the hesitation doesn't even happen every time. Some other guys said it might be the fuel filter needs replacing. Do you think that coil packs are the problem for me as well?

 

So I've found some coils - do I want Hanshin or Mitsubishi?

Thanks.

 

I had this exact problem about a year and a half ago. I spent hundreds of dollars trying to find the problem. I took it to the dealership and they ripped me off royally with no results. I lived with the problem for a long time. Finally, I hit this website and then took my car to another Nissan dealership. They hooked it up and immediately diagnosed the problem as Bad Coil Pack. I could only afford to change the one that was bad. My car ran brillantly afterwards. I posted all of this back then, but couldn't do a search to find it for you. The way you described your car's behavior is exactly like mine behaved.

 

I swapped out the cylinder 1 coil and it runs like it should now. - Thanks to all for saving me $s...

Poly

 

which brand did you end up choosing(which was recommended), poly, and how much were they and where did you end up getting them?

 

yes, we need more info on this, us crimson blaze maximas need to be upto par on performance. Im gonna replace my bad coil pack(s) soon here, and need all the info I can get.

 

any other comments on whether you think my situation posted previously is possibly a result of the same thing?

 

I ended up going with Hanshin due to availablility. All the independent stores wanted around $110 (Canadian) but had no stock and the wait was around 2 weeks - I didn't want to drive around with the miss for 2 weeks so I went with the dealer but paid through the nose ($158CAN). BTW the Hanshins have "NISSAN" molded into the plastic, so I think they are the OEMs vs Mitsu.

I did get a quote from Courtesy at $65US but didn't want to wait or pay the duty.

A couple things to note:

I couldn't get a code, so I went out and drove it pretty hard to get it to miss at the higher RPMs - it never showed the Check Engine light, but did end up giving me the 0608 code (Cylinder 1 misfire) after the hard run.

Also, when trying to source the parts they wanted to know if I need right or left bank. Right is windshield side, left is radiator side. They were different prices too.

Brudaddy - when I was trying to get the car to throw the code I was getting a lot of misses at around 3500 when the engine is not in optimum power band and under load - it would really stutter. I would say to drive around and try to get the hesitiation and then immediately try to pull the codes...

 

damn those things are expensive new. glad to hear things are working out.

i bought some from a fellow org member and turns out i don't need them anymore. hopefully i'll be able to sell them to someone else.

 

Poly, did you already replace the cyl that it spit a code for? How is it running now? Was it an effective way to find out.

Yeah, that is when mine hesitates, but mine doesn't do all that at a stop like all the rest were talking about.

 

mine did the same thing. retarded idle, etc. Mine would hesitate a little for a while, esp when cold. i replaced the plugs, and it instantly got worse. the car felt like it was really soggy until about 5700 rpm, then it would feel normal. the check engine light would flash at me, and eventually it turned on. Idle was really retarded too.

ran the code, cyl #3 missfire. got a new coil pack from Greg V at Quality Nissan 800.229.2292 for $60 something.

problem went away.

worst part was the missfire first developed when some kid in a prelude vtec tried to pass me in a merge lane, i started to kill him in first, then the missfire hit HARD in 2nd and he passed me, oh well.

funny, seems to only happen in the rear 3 coil packs...hmmm. anyone else have 1,3 or 5 die?