Yes, I had to reset mine by disconnecting negative terminal for 30 minutes.

 

Heh, yup, at least, that is what we've been told.

 

Any update on the ignition coil recall because i just got off the phone with a nissan rep. and they said that there has not been enough cases in order to recall.

 

Yeah...there is no recall... Doubt there will be any recall because it is already a very ongoing problem and there has been no recall.

This is not a safety issue, and they are on the second version of the car past the 2k... Doubt you will ever see anything.

If this was safety related, like the fuel-injector recall in the 80's, then it would be different.

 

My father ownes a 99 se that had the coils replaced on. The traction control light was comming on. This was because the engine was cutting out just like it does when loosing traction. He replaced all of them at the suggestion of the dealer .So I'm sure this wasn't the only 4th gen that went bad...

 

Dude, i just tried replacing my coils in 20 degree weather at 9:00 p.m. Me and my friends got the first front done, you made it seem like the rear was so easy. We couldn't even do it because it was so freakin cold outside, it looks like you gotta remove a whole lot of crap. Is there an easier way to get to it?? Also, what's up up with that "change it in 15 minutes" bull, explain please, also explain HOW I CAN GET THE FEELING BACK IN MY HANDS AFTER RUSHING OUT IN SUBZERO TEMPERATURES LISTENING TO YOUR OPTIMISTIC WRITEUP??!!!!!!!! IM VERY ****ED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I CAN HARDLY TYPE BECAUSE I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I HAVE ANY FREAKIN FINGERS!!!!

 

Huh, glad I didn't proceed earlier

I couldn't even get the ornament cover off... those allen-head bolts were stuck!

 

15 minutes??? Maybe for the front three, but not the back. It took me just over 45 minutes to do all six and remove, inspect and put anti-sieze on the plugs. Of course that was in a garage with light and some heat. The #5 coil is a royal pain in the a$$ to get to, but you don't have to remove anything -- just move some cables to the side and figure out the right way to twist and turn the coil to get it out. I didn't even have to remove my FTSB, although life would have been easier had I done so. One suggestion. Do some stretching before beginning the rear three. Your back will thank you latter...

 

Beginners ...

What would you have done if it was *really* cold?!?

 

My dad and I had no experience with replacing the coils. In fact, he was told with my moms 99 Max that u had to be very experienced with replacing coils(NOTTTTTTTTT!!) My dad replaced all 6 coils in the 2000 GLE in 20 minutes. As mentioned earlier, coil #5, takes more time to take out. Fairly simple and he was glad to learn something new on the Max

 

Whats up guys, I just got an 00 se 5sp about a month ago w/ 62k miles. A few days ago, about the same time we got hit with this cold blitz in nyc, i began to feel a rough idle when I first started the car. It wouldnt go away until the car warmed up like 15 minutes later. But about the time idle became smooth, the car would stink of rotten eggs. Im pretty sure its the coils, and even more so now after reading this thread. But theres still a small chance that it is the MAF. Has anyone else noticed that sulfur/rotten egg smell along with the rough idle? All input is appreciated.

And one other thing, why can't I use the search function?

Thanks

 

you have to donate in order to search the forum

 

tried that, got this :

M A K E A D O N A T I O N

Thank you very much for your consideration in donating to Maxima.org. Our busy schedule prevents us from updating your accounts to the status of "Donating Member" so we are currently not taking donations due to the fact that it takes a lot of time to manually update the records. Sorry for the inconvenience this may cause. We will accept donations in the near future.

 

Heh, welp, I'm about 100% sure I can replace all six in 15 minutes or less. Granted, I've pulled my plugs three times to take a look so I've got the procedure for doing it down. Really, you're only talking pulling out four (I think) allen bolts and six regular bolts that really aren't torqued down.

 

Mine smells like rotten eggs. I haven't had time/money to get the coils, so I'm kinda waiting it out. I plan on changing them soon, as it doesnt look too hard. I hope I haven't destroyed my cat. by waiting. Anyone want to chime in on this one?

 

An update-- A mechanic friend of mine hooked up the car to the computer and got a misfire on cylinder#6. We then tried checking each coil by disconnecting each plug, but there was a difference in the engine shake whenever we disconnected a plug so they were all working and we couldnt really figure out which cylinder is # 6. We took off the front cover and took out the coil on the far right, it seemed fine. Checked the plug while i was at it and it was good, NGK Type R Plugs. So what I have is an occasional coil failure. We reset the SES light and ran the OBD-II tests again and there were no misfire fault codes this time and SES didnt come back on.


Asked him about that damn rotten egg smell i sometimes get and he said that its either the o2 sensors or the catalytic convertor, most likely the catalytic convertor. Gonna have to wait for another misfire or coil failure now to make sure whats what.

 

You should have checked your owner's manual. It has a diagram showing the cylinder numbers. #6 is the right-most cylinder on the bank closest to the front of the car. If you were lucky enough to get a code indicating the problem cylinder, I'd suggest spending $60 on a replacement coil and hope that's the only one going bad. Also, the occasional rotten egg smell is probably caused by your coil problem. The smell is caused by the combination of hydrocarbons (i.e., unburnt fuel) and sulfur. Misfiring = unburnt fuel. I had the same smell when my coils were failing.

 

I dont know if this has been mentioned, but I was talking to a ford service advisor about a week ago with a common problem on a ford product and he said that if there are enough cases of failure the company may be forced into doing a recall.

I suggest that you guys post enough complaints here: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/ and get them to do an investigation on this.

 

Looks like your rough idle problem is intermittent. That's why your CES light did not come on again.
I would not worry about it much yet, until it becomes more pronounced (and it will, within a month or so - then your CES light won't go away after resetting). I've had rough idle for months with the CES light "ON" on my Max2000 before I figured out what was wrong. The car has good tolerance to this kind of malfunction.
(maybe not the best advice though...)

Rotten egg smell is indeed the catalytic converter - the unburned fuel reacts with the ceramic converter and that's what produces the smell. Another bad thing is that this chemical reaction turns the ceramic material of the converter into fine powder.

 

Here is another story regarding the ignition coils for a 2000 SE Manual…

I first noticed the problem when the SES light came on and after a few weeks I felt a slight & intermittent rumble under the hood. I took it into the dealer and they said that all 6 coils needed to be replaced for $550. I took it home and tested each coil per the Hayne’s manual (and changed out my spark plugs while they were accessible.) The test didn’t show anything conclusive. After a few weeks of thinking it over and exploring options, I looked through the thread on this website and decided to contact Nissan. I called up their number and politely explained the situation. After a week and a half they called me back and told me that they would fix it for free under their Goodwill program. The car is currently at the dealer.

This was the first time I have ever done work on a car. From changing the plugs, I would estimate changing out the coils would take me 60-90 minutes. The front coils are very easy and the back coils are a little more difficult. The coils can be purchased from Autozone for $49.99/coil or you can try the Dave B. person recommended earlier. Hope this helps…

 

This is a safety issue. One of my coils failed in the middle of the road, which dropped the speed significantly and I was not able to drive over 30. I was lucky not to be rear-ended.

The problem is that Nissan is just being cheap. VW/Audi recalled their coils recently. Just go to vwvortex forum. They were complaining about the coils for a while and VW finally issued a recall.

 

You would probably have to have 3 go at once for that to occur. Maxi's will only hesistate a bit on 5 cylinders, although it is definately noticable. You could remove a plug and coil altogether and drive around safely. That's just darn unlucky to lose a couple at once.

I agree they are being cheap... I'm surprised they haven't fixed it yet.

 

What are the symptoms of bad coils?

 

Hesitation or pinging/detonation. It will be an obvious "missing" in the engine. If it is bad enough the SES light will come on.

The problem is increased by running a high load in a high gear, i.e. driving uphill on a warm day with the a/c on in 5th gear at under 2000 rpm.

 

I get heavy hesitation when I drive the car in cold morning. Can't accelerate at all because my car jerks forward and back when I try to accelerate. Problem goes away when the car is little warmer. Is that sign of bad coil?

 

Nope... this is normal! Wait until your car is up to operating temperature before noticing how it drives. When the temp gets below zero here, I can't drive over 2100 rpm for about 3-5 minutes. Car shakes violently but there are many reasons for that, none of which I'm worried about. If I let my car run for 2 mins before pulling out of the driveway, which I usually do, that won't happen at all.

I see this comment all the time on here, but really how fast do most folks expect injectors to open and close in subzero temps? Once your car gets the slightest amount of heat in the engine that will go away. Same way your body works

 

Out of the 87 people here who stated that they have had coil problems (as per the poll), how many of you have posted a complaint on the nhtsa site? It should be all 87 of us. They already have my complaint.........

 

I just finished my complaint to that .GOV site.
I would also like to write a letter to Nissan... anybody got their mailing address?

 

Just finished my coils & plugs today!

Wasn't too bad, but you do need to remove the bracket holding the accel & cruise control cables and move them out of the way for cylinder 5... (2 10mm bolts holding it down)

I installed 6 new silver-dot OEM Nissan coils, 5 copper spark plugs, and 1 platinum (all 6 were packaged with the NGK copper P/N, but one of them contained a platinum!!! not sure if I should keep that one in there or buy a single copper one from NAPA and swap it)

Performance is incrementally better, not dramatic, but I can induce wheel hop in 1st gear at this one intersection with barely 1/8th throttle... overall response is a little better, feels like there's a little more torque at the wheels. Definitely worthwhile.

However, one thing disturbs me--Cylinder #4 (middle on the front bank) had oil in its threads... the plug was easier to remove than the others, although I don't believe the firing tip had much more deposits than the rest (though cyl 4 and 6 had more white "spots" on the insulator than the rear bank plugs, although cyl 6's plug didn't have oil on the threads)

I couldn't do a compression test at the time, but I will do one eventually. Maybe that plug just wasn't torqued tight enough at the factory
or maybe I have a compression/oil leak in the cylinder...

 

I replaced mine in like 30 min. I didn't have to remove anything but the front cover over the front three coils. I also used these new Iridium plugs. They were kind of expensive, but I figured this poor max needs all the ignition help she can get. Those guys that took an hour or more to do the job were still working while I had already finished, went and took a leak, downed a few beers, read the sunday paper, took a 20 min nap, kicked my neighbors dog acroos the yard, and took the car for a test drive.

 

After reading all these posts, it seems like coils are my problem as well. I'm getting the rotten egg smell, I'm getting the knocking, the shaking, and the stalling. My light is on. The only problem is I'm already 500 bucks in on this problem and I'm not sure the dealer will replace the coils under their service warranty. What's the number you all called at Nissan to try and get them to cover some of it please? Thanks.

 

I have a bumper to bumper warranty on my Max. If I start having ignition coil problems with my car, will that cover it?

 

Look at your coils and see if there is a silver dot on the tops of them. if there is, they are the updated coils and you shouldnt have a problem with them

 

I've got an 03SE and have had major pinging issues for about 6 months now. I checked my coils and they have a grey circle on them, not a dot, are these any good or should I try to get them replaced?

 

Big dot = circle

 

Ok... very funny. Lets just say that the circle was not colored in. It was a grey ring on the top on the coils.

 

I'm pretty sure those are the updated ones. As for the pinging, I'm not sure what that could be. Are you running 93 octane gas? Anyone else have any ideas?

 

It should, but read your coverage doc that came with your warranty to be sure.

 

First of all, I would pull the codes. See if Autozone could do that for you for free? Knowing the codes will guide you in the right direction, and could even pinpoint the bad coil.

 

I've had similar symptoms to many of the previous posts.... misfires, stuttering for a few minutes after startup, SES light on and off, etc.
I've taken it to Autozone twice for the SES light, and each time it was an O2 sensor malfunction. The dealer told me that if it happened again, i might need the $750 ignition coil fix.
Would a bad coil make the O2 sensors malfunction? Is it possible that I've replaced two O2 sensors for nothing?
Thanks again.