Help my Maxima won't start
 

Hi everyone! Please help, my Max barely starts, sometimes takes 5 min to get it started. I have a 97Maxima 5spd with 110 000 miles on it with 5 month old regular air filter and 10 months old NGK Platinum spark plugs. It was in the shop for about 2 month with ¾ of a gas tank full. No one started it for that time because clutch and body kit was put on. Also my 2 ½” CATBack without resonator was put on too. Same night I started experiencing problems with a car. Starter turns the engine, car chocks, feels like it’s about to start but it doesn’t. I try to start it for 15-25 seconds then i give it 30 seconds rest and try again and again. Anyways I end up frying starter. Took the car back to the shop they put a new starter. They did some diagnostics told me that FRONT O2 Sensor has problems (done with OBD2 scanner). Does O2 sensors have anything to do with starting up a car??? When I end up starting the car kind of a dark blue smoke comes out of a muffler for a first couple seconds after start. Car barely starts PLEASE HELP. Shop told me that after changing O2 Sensors car should start OK. Or it is because of my CATBACK. Any ideas for trouble shooting or similar situation or anything useful would be great or just email me max97ima@yahoo.com. Thanks

people with bad o2 sensors have been able to start their cars from everything that I've read on this forum.

yeah 02's only affect the car once it has already started. Check and make sure your battery/alt are up to spec, check all your ignition coils, injectors, fuel pressure/fuel filter, etc.

Also, you said that gas sat for some time, have you added some new gas to it? Ran a full tank through? All gas slowly breaks down, making it unusuable (hard starting, dieing, etc.), and if you got gas from an older style station, the gas can start to break down in as little has 8 hours of being untouched. Might try throwing some of the gas additive in, the one that keeps the gas from breaking down. Also, pull your plugs, they often will tell you quite a bit about what is going on in the engine (running lean, rich, predetonation, etc.)

Finally, you might want to pull the ecu codes yourself, check stickys at top of this page.

helped a little
 

Thanks, I’ve put more gas and Injector cleaner so I have like a little more then half a tank of gas. Made a difference starts better but still with problems. Also I think it might have been because of gas because I have a “check engine light” on and it only comes up when couple times I’ve put 87 gas in a car (OBD2 scanner saying O2 sensor malfunction). Another times “check engine light” comes up when I put gas in a car wile it’s still running (OBD2 scanner saying Evaporating Valve malfunction)