I have a 1999 Maxima GLE - it has around 51K. When I am idling the car kind of bucks - it almost feels like it is going to stall - but it doesn't. When I accelerate it feels like it doesn't want to and when I push it (accelerate harder) it makes my service engine soon light blink on and off before finally shutting off. This doesn't happen all the time but it happened during my commute to work today and I am really starting to get nervous that smething awful is wrong with my car!

Can anyone offer me advice? Thanks! - Marie

 

read the faq's and check the codes you get from the ecu. you might just have a knock sensor problem. READ carefully. maybe you'll see some of the symtoms that your car has. Your other option is to take it to the stealership.

 

Those symptoms have absolutly nothing to do with the knock sensor. That sounds a lot like a bad MAF sensor but is it still doing it???

If it isn't I wouldn't worry about it. I had this same thing happen one time about two years ago (and I recall hearing about another member stating that this happened to him.) I started my car and the idle was very rough, I put it in drive and gave it a little gas and it stumbled like crazy. I shut the car off and restarted it and everything was fine. It has never done this again.

The only other time it did this is when I was doing some work on the car and forgot to reconnect the MAFS harness. After I connected it I had no problems and this has never happened again. If your car is running fine now swing up to autozone and have them check the codes, I am guessing you will not have any. If it is still doing this read them yourself with the screw (because of course your car wouldn't make it to autozone) but I can pretty much assure you that it is your MAFS.

 

Coil packs. thats another possibility.