ok. i woke up this morning to go to school and tried to start my car and it wouldnt start. It wouldnt even crank. Last night it started perfectly fine with out any problems. I switched out the ignition switch with a spare i had today thinking that was the problem and still nothing. Battery is still good. Is it the starter?

 

Sounds like it. Take it out and let autozone test it

 

+1

If lights and electronics work with key in "ON" position, but the car wont crank at all then its prolly starter

 

If you have Autozone test it, and it fails have them test the new one as well. Mine failed and then the one out of the box failed. I kept mine and recharged the battery and it cranked just fine.

PS my lights and stuff worked, but the battery was dead enough not to turn the starter.

 

hit the starter and see if it'll crank or change sound. If it does, you def know its the starter.

 

yea i tried tapping the starter with a hammer and it still did nothing. i guess ill have to take it out and get it tested. sadly im beggining to hate the maxima. its been giving me nothing but trouble the last year. i think its time to buy a 240. thanks for the advice

 

also have you messed with the tranny or anything recently?

 

nope. changed my cv axles last may. thats about it.

 

Ay bro, it might be the grounding. Check and see.

 

Starter for sure. NAPA has em for about $160 or so. Had mine replaced 2 weeks ago.

 

how do you know your battery is good?
it could have enough power to make the electronics work, but not enough to make the starter work.
is the car making a click when you turn the key? if so more than likely it's your starter, if it doesn't, your battery.

 

says the man with 4 posts....

 

ok. so i took the starter out and had autozone test it. they said that its perfectly fine. now what? before i took the starter out i tried to jump start it. nothing. so now what do i check?

 

now u check to see if the fuel pump is workin and check for spark. First make sure fule pump fuse isnt busted. Then Take rear seat out and put car in "ON" position. hurry and feel/pinch line coming off fuel filter goin into engine and see if it pulsating. If so then pump is working. If not, gotta check pump relay and see if relay gettin power. Then check pump harness.

If pump workin then u have to start checkin sensors. CKPS POS and REF, and CPS. CKPS POS and ingnition switch tell the ECU the car is starting up and to supply fuel. CHeck to see if these are working. Replace any of the three that are broken. CPS has an internal resistinace that has to be tested. Check harnesses for each sensor.


Describe exactly what the car is doing when u turn the key?

 

when i turn the key the only thing i hear is the beeping noise the car makes when the key is in the ignition. thats it. no clicking or cranking.

 

See my posts 13 and 18. http://forums.maxima.org/4th-generat...ml#post7075437
Replacing the ignition switch wouldn't have fixed this.

 

Ok. today i took out the battery and had autozone test it. the battery is perfectly fine. guess i need to start checking fuses. could it be the wire going from the battery to the starter?

 

it could be the wires to the starter it could be a grounding issue it could be the lil wire that goes to the starter i would check there first it seems a wire broke sine u had it started and then u drove home an in the am u didnt have a start so look at all fuses, wires and relays

 

I actually have a 96 Maxima myself. About 3 weeks ago I had the same issue. I made a trip to pick up something; when I was leaving to go back to campus, it wouldn't start/do anything just as you have described. I replaced the starter and now I have no problems with it - starts right up. I would say go for a starter. I put an OEM starter in, cost about $140. No complaints with it.

 

Ignition relay?

 

ok. in the morning im going to check the fuses and if i cant find anything i guess ill have to check the wires

 

Gregmaxin,

Had you any trouble starting before that first morning it didn’t crank? I would think if the starter was going bad there would be a little bit of long starting and stuff first, but I don’t know for sure. Also there have been many cases where starters have passed the Autozone test and still not been good, so I wouldn’t completely rule it out as the culprit. FWIW, since the starter is so easy to change, I would prefer to get a starter from a junk yard and save the cash. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you can get a lifetime warranty on a new starter.

Truthfully, though, it sounds to me like something may have come loose while driving if you didn’t have problems before. I would check the trigger switch (not sure what the technical name for it is). It’s by your starter and if it’s unclipped or isn’t connected well, then the starter won’t even click.

 

double check the battery and just the ground

 

ok thanks for the info guys

 

I went through all these symptoms.. I replaced everything I could imagine at the time.. I was getting fuel spark.. had a new battery.. new switch relay..everything.. Few months previous I did get a new start from napa... We did a lot of studying up on what could be the problem...Hmmss.. we read somewhere about the OEM starters had a extra crank tooth or two on them vs the regular autopart stores such as napa and auto... Now we found a salvage place where they had a I30 OEM starter... in a few days...received it..Installed... Vrrrroooooom! no problem @ all.. Now I have the luxury of using my Remote Start on my alarm.

 

well guys. guess what. today when i got home from school i finally found my haynes manual. so i looked up the starting wire diagram and checked all of the fuses that had to do with starting the car. got to the ignition switch fuse which was under the hood and found that it was no good. went to autozone and got a new one. the fuse cost about 4 bucks. got home installed it and the car started right up!!!! its funny that something so little can cause such a big problem. thanks for the help guys!

 

yup yup another maxi on the road

see sig

 

I finally got mine started yesterday. Dang that's 2 maxi's in 2 days guys. I like those numbers.

 

Could've sworn that my friend's '96 Maxima (her spare car, luckily) needed a new ignition switch, since it'd been having the usual symptoms for at least a couple of years (most obviously, having to pull up on the key at a certain angle to engage the ignition). Even that trick finally stopped working a few weeks ago, so I replaced the ignition switch this week, thanks to the instructions I found on another forum here ...

... And now, of course, it won't crank at all. The battery's dead, I know, but jump-starting it makes no difference -- all the lights, radio, etc., come on while the cables are hooked up, but still nothing from the ignition.

Any suggestions beyond those above? Could the battery, while being jumped, still lack enough power to fire the starter? The battery was tested a couple of months ago & came up fine, but it's sat idle since then.

 

Sounds like the starter to me. On my 97 Max, the starter was binding up and didn't have enough power to turn. If it moved at all and cranked then the engine fired right up. It just got worse and worse until finally it wouldn't turn over at all. After changing out the starter, I haven't had a problem since (knock on wood!!)

 

Go back in to the ignition switch, and try turning the switch itself with a screwdriver in the slot. If it works, see my posts 13 and 18: http://forums.maxima.org/4th-generat...ml#post7075437

 

Tried that, but no luck. And turning the screwdriver blade broke off most of the plastic "well" (I have no idea what the actual term is) in the switch. *sigh*