maxjetblack

i was driving my car this morning and my car just stalled for no reason. it was so freaking cold out (like 5- 10 degrees) and I had to go somewhere quickly so i only had the car running for 2 minutes. it was driving fine until i made this one turn and when i went into 2nd gear the car just about stopped right there. So i dropped back down to 1st and stopped at the traffic light. I put it in neutral and all of sudden the rpm goes to about 500 then to about 3000 by itself and came back down and stalled. I tried to start it again but it just cranked so i had to give gas in order to start it barely (took like 5 seconds). Did this happen to any of you? i remember reading something like this but i couldnt find it. was it just because it was cold?

96explorerxlt

I think it has something to do with the MAF

Max99black

My 99 was doing the same thing so i cleaned out my throttle body and the car ran like new. Inside the throttle body is you idle control valve I believe. Dirt and debris can get inside there and hamper your cars ability to maintain idle therefore you get crazy spikes in the rpm. Try cleaning out the throttle body and as long as you dont have a check engine light on, it shouldnt be your maf.

maxjetblack

first of all, what is an MAF? and as for the cleaning out the throttle body, is it a DIY job? (any writeups?) also my knock sensor is bad. do you think that is part of the problem?

CorollaULEV

I know I'm outta my league here, but my friend's 99 Maxima just got the knock sensor replaced today b/c it was bad (see previous post). It never did anything like this and it's been driven in 5ºF weather here lately.

MAF (mass airflow) sensor has a heated wire and it is used to determine how much air is coming into the engine. It is the #1 sensor the ECU uses to determine what the fuel injection pulse will be (along with rpm and coolant temp). It's not something the engine can do without and be driveable. It's a touchy device - very accurate. It replaces the MAS (mass air sensor - had a spring loaded flap) and the MAP sensor (manifold absolute pressure sensor).

Throttle body cleaning - do a search on the web. I'm sure you'll get some hits on it. Fairly easy to do.

Sounds like the idle air control valve gunked up - a throttle body cleaning would do you well.

Trav

crouton

I had very similar problems, but they started at highway speeds (70mph.) It degraded into stalling at idle, stalling at 15mph, etc. MAF sensor was replaced, so far so good.

Don't know if it's related to cold weather, because it's been middlin' cold here since I started having these problems.