A couple months ago my car was having intermittent starting problems. After I start the car the RPM's would start dropping and the car would die. It was happening about once a week so I decided to take it in to the dealer. They said they couldn't duplicate the problem and couldn't find anything wrong with my car. Now my car will do that every time I go to fill up with gas, but only on that occasion. The only way for me to keep it from stalling is by hitting the gas right after start up to get the RPM's up. I just wanted to know if anyone on the org is aware of what the problem may be. I also can't seem to find a decent dealer in my area. I live in San Dimas, CA and have tried Metro Nissan in Montclair and Planet Nissan in San Bernardino. Bad service from both places. Any West Coast peeps know of a good dealer to take my car to? Thanks for any help.

p.s. car is 2000 se 5spd, stock except for K&N drop in.

 

It sounds like it might be related to the gas cap. Try just uncapping the gas cap for a minute, recap it and start up the car. If it is reproducable that way...bring it into the dealership and show them.

 

Good thought, but I tried it right now and my car started up just fine.

 

Empire Nissan of Ontario has been good to me so far. You might want to check them out

 

Take the service guy with you, get gas, and show him the problem?

 

I have had a similar problem on a few occasions. I finally realized that it was only happening after I had started up the car, driven a short distance (less than a couple of miles, or 5-10 minutes), shut the car off, and started it back up. For example, I once started the car after it had been sitting for a day and drove to the store down the road. When I got back in the car and started it back up, the RPMs dropped and the car stalled. I started it back up again, and it stalled again. On the third try I gave it some gas to keep it going, and it was fine after that. This has happened a few times. Some other times, the RPMs will drop down below 500 for a couple of seconds after I start the car, but then they pick back up without the car stalling.

I brought this up with the dealer when I took my car in for its last service, and the service writer claimed that it was "normal" but that they would look at it anyway. He said that the car needs to run for at least 10 minutes the first time it is started up because the fuel-air mixture is rich during that time, causing extra fuel to build up and making it difficult to restart during that time. I'm not sure I buy the claim that this is "normal" behavior, because it only started doing this around 25,000 miles (the car has about 32,000 miles on it now), and I've never experienced this behavior with any other car I've driven.

2kmist--how far do you drive the car before you get to the gas station? If it's a short distance/time, then you may be experiencing something similar to what I'm experiencing.

Anyone else with this problem? Any solutions?

 

I drive the car only about 3 miles to the gas station. I don't think that it is the short trip that is doing it though because yesterday I filled up after driving for about 20 minutes. Maybe I'll try to take the car to Empire Nissan and see if one of the service writers will go to get gas with me. I hate going to dealerships though. It always ends up being a waste of time. They always send me away saying that it's normal for the car to do that.