Hey guys,

I have a '99 SE-L (5sp) with 71K miles that has a strange internal rattle coming from the left side of the engine bay. I can't pinpoint the exact loction of the noise but the rattle doesn't increase when the the revs rise, and the CEL is not on.

Probably going to get it in the shop tomorrow, but figured I'd see if you experts had any ideas.

Thanks in advance!

Kevin

 

Does NOT change with engine speed?

Left - driver side or passenger side?

The left side of the car is usually the driver side, however if your looking at the engine from the front, left could be pass. side. Please clarify that for us.

 

I went out to try to get some video of the noise and turns out that I was revving a little high to notice that the rattle IS affected by the engine speed. The noise is definately coming from the passenger side of the engine bay.

Except for my stock rims, our cars look identical! :-)

 

Here is a recording of the noise from this afternoon courtesy of my blackberry.

It picked up the rattle quite well and hopefully someone will have an idea what it is...

Thanks for looking

 

Ooops, double tap!

 

ewwww.... sounds expensive. sorry, I have no experience with that noise. let us know what happens.

 

Sounds like a broken pulley ! But yeah that does sound expensive nonetheless

 

It's at a shop right now, waiting on the call back...

I'm afraid, very afraid!!

 

Sounds not so good. Get a used engine for $100.

 

Well they said they couldn't find anything, and I spent most of the afternoon on the .org doing research.

Looking like (fingers crossed) the TC tensioner/chain guide. Dave B is overnighting the parts to me for install tomorrow. Hopefully, this will fix the problem.

 

Could it be the chain?

 

@ 71,000 miles I bloody well hope not!!

 

You need a timing chain tensioner @ 71,000 miles ??! Wooooooow
Has anybody opened up the engine before you owned it and possibly messed
with something ? Sounds like someone somewhere screwed up your engine.

 

Personally I have put roughly 7.5K on the car, I'm the 3rd owner. The carfax came back golden with verified mileage, no accidents etc. There are absolutely no fluid leaks anywhere and the condition of the car is reflected in the low miles.

The only thing that was of a little concern was that the car had only done 1,400 miles in the last year and a half that the previous owner had the car. Turns out he's a plumber and had gotten a work truck which he drove everywhere and his wife had an Xterra.

So could it have been messed with? Well, anything is possible but at this point I'd doubt it.


Still in the dark as to the actual problem, ordered parts yesterday in the HOPE it is tensioner/chain guide related but I have been told that this was really an issue with the '97-'98 cars not on the '99's When the parts show up this afternoon I will get back to the shop and probably move it elsewhere as they don't seem to have a clue either!

 

OK I am being told that it's gonna be $825 in labor just taking off the timing cover then once they determine what's failed, the worst case scenario is another $400 on top of that.

What's your guys opinion, am I getting ripped off here?

I'm so glad I spent the extra cash of a low miler, so I wouldn't have to worry about major repairs

 

Not really...you're going to pay more for a mechanic obviously, but there is a lot of work involved in taking off the cover.

 

you just fell for the same line that people have been believeing for year. lower mileage =better. such utter crap

 

Yeah timing chain issues should be left to the those who know what the hell they're doing... and I don't even come close to falling into that category!

 

This repair is premature I'll tell you that much
I have 200,000 miles on my maxima and haven't changed TC Tension or water pump yet.

Its to early mileage to be changing it, which suggests to me that someone
F*cked up somewhere perhaps at the factory.

 

FWIW, I will be replacing the tensioner and guide this weekend along with the o rings on the rear timing chain case to fix my terrible oil leak. I am going to do a complete walkthrough on it and post it, so if you wait until then at least you will have a how to. Plus if mine doesn't work when I put it back together then you'll know you might want to get the mechanic to do it lol! I was quoted about $900 from my dirt cheap mechanic. I'm broke so I have no choice.

 

Well the timing covers are off and ALL the chain guides are trashed. They also need to replace the crankshaft pulley sprocket, all for a grand total of $1,754! No-one in the state has a couple of the tensioners and Dave B tells me there are a few of us doing timing chains on 4th Gens so he doesn't have everything either.

Came across a possible explanation today, during my chat with Dave.

The first oil change i did after buying the car took over an hour for all of the old oil to drain. Leading me to now wonder if the wrong grade of oil was used. I talked to the previous owner this morning and apparently the oil was changed just prior to me buying the car at a jiffy lube type place... I didn't/don't know enough about cars to realize that this could be a problem, and the guy at Wal Mart doing the first oil change said nothing about it.

So what do you think guys? Could the use of the wrong grade oil with poor viscosity lead to lack of lubrication around the timing chain and possibly cause this problem?

 

Hey man good luck with the work ahead of you! Hopefully it will go smoothly and you won't have too many problems. A walkthrough for other members is a great idea and I know you'd be doing a lot of guys a huge service! I hear the broke part but I fear that me attempting something like this will create waaay more problems than it would solve!!

Looking forward to your update

 

to be honest, maxima engines are so cheap now, if i heard a rattling noise like that in my motor, i would rather replace it than spending that kinda money fixing it.

 

Thanks I'll be sure to keep that in mind next time...

 

do you have pictures of the trashed pulleys ?
this is insane why would the wrong grade of oil
destroy all your tensioners ?

 

Haven't seen them personally, but I'll head over to the shop on Monday and get some pics for anyone whose interested.

Dave B seemed to think that if the oil was too thick it could restrict the amount of oil pumped into the timing chain area and with the guides being plastic, it wouldn't take long for them to get messed up. Not sure why it would take 6,000 miles to show up tho...

Not saying the this was actually the case, it was just something we were throwing around. Not even sure if it's feasible, but for sure Dave knows way more than me!

 

any updates ?

 

Went over to the shop yesterday and chatted with the owner a bit (He kicked my *** for having a a fram oil filter on it as it's all WalMart uses.) The covers were off and I was shown loose tensioners and chain. I did take some pictures but as nothing is being removed until we have all the parts, I doubt they are much value.

I will be getting all the parts back and can post some close ups if necessary.

 

having same problem

 

Then do what I would have done had I known what I know now...

Buy a 3.5 and swap out the whole damn thing.

 

yeah...with a cheap eninge the entire swap prolly 1000 bucks or less ...

 

I'm in New Zealand and we get alot of Jap import cars here. The Maxima was called a Cefiro in Japan.
I bought my first Cefiro with (100 000 miles) 2 weeks ago with a similar sounding motor, when it's idling. But as soon as you go off idle the motor runs perfect. I heard the strange misfire when I went to look at the car, but thought it may just need a good service. I was disappointed when it didn't go away no matter what I tried. I decided to go the cheaper option and do a motor swap. My theory on what may be causing this problem is oil starvation. Just before I pulled my motor I started my car and took the oil filler cap off. I didn't see any oil pumping out from the cam supports. So I continued to remove the motor. When I took the motor out I had a good look at the oil filter. It was a Japanese brand. I checked the mileage of the car when it came into New Zealand and it was on 37 000 miles. I thought the oil filter may be causing the problem. So I put the motor back. I'm putting the last bits back today and will see if a new oil filter will solve the problem. As far as I know the timing chain tensioners use oil pressure to put pressure on the chain. So when it idles and has low oil pressure, the timing chain gets a bit of slack, timing got out a bit causing the misfire.
That's my theory anyway.
I'll let you know what happens