Mmmaxx

I have a 99 maxima, though it isn't currently my daily driver anymore. When I originally bought the car I had to have all the coil-packs replaced around 40,000 miles I had to get them all replaced as well as the spark plugs because the CEL codes didn't say which bank was misfiring. Last Friday my girlfriend was driving the car and noticed that there was some very intermittent misfires from the engine, but after the engine was warmed up it went away and everything was fine. To me it sounds like maybe a coil-pack is once again having some issues.

Later that same day she was getting onto the highway and was getting up to speed, probably rather quickly as usual and felt a lot of hesitation like the power dropped off steeply around 60mph, but then it evened out. She said when that happened the CEL light blinked rapidly for a few seconds and then went solid again. I say again, because it was only prior to this, but it wasn't anything that warranted fixing right then.

Anyway, I brought the car to the shop today and the misfire is consistent now, not intermittent, I haven't seen the cel blink at all. My mechanic thinks the blinking cel means a transmission problem, but I thought that was normally a OD light blinking. Either way, he can't look at it until tomorrow so I was curious if anyone had any idea what the cel flashing meant? It only happened that once afaik. The car itself only has 115K on it and has been regularly serviced when needed etc. Thought it seems as though from around 105K it's been popping up with new problems every 5-6 months.

njmaxseltd

iTrader: (19)

Find another mechanic!

A blinking CEL indicates a misfire. (under load)
Pull the codes to see if it recorded which cylinder it is. Replace that coil pack.

Mmmaxx

lol, I would but he is pretty good and cheap since his wife works for me. His shop specializes in Nissan's and Infiniti's as well, though he seems to get confused with 4th gens since he doesn't work on many of them any more.

Thanks for the info though, I was pretty sure blinking CEL had nothing to do with the transmission.

cashoit

+1

Blinking CEL is a misfire. Cant believe he sd possible tranny issues. But then again the dude hasnt really looked at the car yet so maybe he jus misspoke.

Either way, teh issue with misfiring shd be easily solved.

njmaxseltd

iTrader: (19)

What worries me with your mechanic is that every car on the road with OBD diagnostics will flash the check engine light if it misfires under load.

It's not Nissan specific and he should be well aware of that.

nissanfreak

iTrader: (4)

This is the same exact problem that my car has been giving me. However its not doing it all the time just every now and then. But yea I agree a coilpack going bad does sound like what would cause this.