Geoff

hello,
Well my mother was driving her 98 maxima(auto) home when it aparently started bucking fairly badly during normal driving. She had it towed to the dealership to be looked at that night. The next day they told us they found nothing wrong with it, but that they wanted to keep it another day. Well the next day they called to tell us that it had a bad converter...so they wanted $3500 to change the tranny, converter, and motor mounts(yea right). Anyways the car drove home fine, and has been driving just fine ever since...except in the moring. It starts fine, and idles at about 1200rpm when it is cold; but as soon as you put it in reverse or drive the engine stalls(never did this untill now). Thinking it has somthing to do with the "choke" or the way the computer controlls the engine for cold start, I hold the rpms at 3000 for about 4 minutes to warm up then put it in gear and it's fine. However it feels kinda ruff when you put it in gear(probly motor mounts). What could cause the stalling in the morning?
thanks,
Geoff

Fulltone74

Check out the Idle Air Control valve. If the valve isn't responding fast enough, the rpms can drop enough to stall the engine whenever the car is put into gear.

Make sure the ECU is reset properly. For whatever reason, if the ECU is in "diagnostic mode", the idle air control valve is disabled.

The only way I would suspect the torque converter is if the lockup mechanism was stuck -- either via signal or the mechanism itself.

Geoff

Hmm, wonder if the dealership left it in diagnostic mode when they gave it to us. Will disconnecting the battery reset the computer in a maxima?
thanks,
Geoff