Hail brothers..........question for you. A good friend had recently bought a 02 Max SE automatic with 49 K from a Nissan dealer. When the car is accelerating gradually, from a low RPM, engine pinging can be heard faintly... He runs 93 octance fuel, had had the fuel system cleaned at the dealer, and there is no CEL..... I cant imagine this being common in the VQ3.5 Besides, it cant be great for the valve train either. My suspicion was a faulty knock sensor, but it has no check engine light. Thanks for the input in advance..

 

There are a few of us on here with that and it's been posted a few times. Problem is you can't do a search unless you donate...and oh yeah, they don't take donations.

The conclusion was that it is a result of an over active conservative fuel use program that has retarded the timing a little too much at a certain speed/RPM/etc.

 

I take that back...the Donations section is again open for business!!

 

I have the same problem with my 2002 6-speed with 15,000 miles. I have had every TSB in the book, including the ECU upgrade, and the car will still occasionally ping in second gear under mild acceleration. It doesn't always happen. Usually only when the car is warmed up.

I am going to change the spark plugs, but I doubt that will help. My feeling from seeing posts on this forum is that this problem is not unique to my car.

 

I on occasion have that problem.

In the Nissan handbook you will notice a statement in the fuel section. It states that under acceleration a light pinging is normal and there is nothing to worry about. All of the dealers I have visited can only do so much without a SES light on. They can retard your timing, but you will lose some power. Nissan's Tech Dept in L.A. have me on file (pretty big file actually) about the pinging issue and everytime I bring it in at a different dealership they said they spoke to their tech dept and told them the same thing. I'm used to it really. I just crank up AC/DC a little louder so I don't hear it as much.

 

Same problem here with my 03.

Light accelleration at approx 1900-2000 RPM.

 

I have it too, and have come to believe it's normal.

Some older threads on this:
thread 1
thread 2
thread 3
thread 4
thread 5

Here's also a couple on fresh alloy:
thread 6
thread 7

 

Roger that. I'm glad to hear it's not me and maximadave's response that it's not a problem makes me feel better.

 

Im a happy member of the pinging club, I just turn up the volume.

 

newbie here Is pinging common in the 3.0L too? (I just bought a 2000 gxe, and I'm a happy new owner )

 

you might have ignition coil problems (pinging sound under acceleration) unless they were replaced by the previous owner.

 

coils were just replaced, actually. I was just wondering if this she might ping in the future (my last vehicle liked to ping too, even after an engine rebuild )

 

I too noticed about 6k miles ago ( I have 34k on it now )that it started to ping.. thing is up until that point it was not there. HHMMM i wonder if our after market intakes may be causing some weird thing to happen either to the MAF or O2S?

I got the same BS from the dealer. So I took it into my local hot rod shop. There I told them It pings loud under light accelaration and only at 1900 to 2000 rpm..

bamb.. they strap it onto the DYNO and on the screen it shows it doing just that. So I called my local dealer.. they sent a tech over and all they could say is.. you can get any car to ping.. FKN BSTRDS>.son of a btchs.... lol man that set me off.

ANy ways my DYNO shop was asking them to test the nock sensor but only offerd the info that if it reads 2.5volts then it must be good.

WTF/// so dyno shop suggest a piggy back computer that is programable to take that nasty ping issue away.. but said that they noticed the rear bank gets lean when it gets around 206 degrees temp.. and not so much when its colder....

SO WITH ALL THIS INFO.. ANY REAL TECH HEADS OUT THERE WANT TO STEP UP AND HELP ME SOLVE THIS ISSUE ONCE AND FOR ALL?

I can work it so we have a dyno to work with.. I am in san diego hit me back...

For now I am very dissapointed with my car.. and want nothing to do with nissan ever again. Sucks cause I have owned three with no probs.

ALSO ANY SUGGESTIONS WITH MY SQUEEKY.. THROW OUT CLUTCH BEARING.. IT MAKES MOUSE LIKE NOISE... WHEN IDLE IN NEUTRAL... BUT IF I PRESS THE PEDAL IN JUST ABOUT 2PERCENT OF THE WAY IT SHUTS UP... ?? THANKS YOU GUYS ROCK. i AM THINKING OF PUTTING MY STOCK AIR BOX BACK IN JUST TO SEE IF PING GETS ANY BETTER.. I AM GLAD I HAVE MAX FAMILY TO TALK WITH IF NOT FOR YOU GUYS I WOULD HAVE DRIVEN MY CAR THROUGH A WINDOW BY NOW.. DAMB PING.

 

i didn't read all the replies, so i apologize if this was already mentioned. she had the same probs. even after the coil replacement she used to ping. i switched from shell 93 to amoco. ever since, pinging is gone..

 

shell/texaco is evil. Their crappy gas blew the head gasket on my toyota 22r less than a year after a complete engine rebuild. Stay away from Shell!

 

[QUOTE=JMAconcepts].......they noticed the rear bank gets lean when it gets around 206 degrees temp.. and not so much when its colder....


hmmnnn...smells like a design problem with the manifold....and curiously enough, something similar is found on the G35 and Z350 manifolds where their plenums are more restrictive to some cylinders than others....

If this pinging is deemed normal & you dont want to retard the timing & lose mileage, performance, etc, a solution might be an old-time, old-fashioned (yeah, my old days) tuning trick and that is replace the OEM spark plugs with same make but one or two heat ranges colder.

Colder plugs dissipate more of the heat from combustion -latent heat in the tip of the spark plug proper- into the cylinder heads....that's why they are called 'colder' plugs, because their tip temp is indeed cooler. In the older days before computers, it was a sure-fire way to reduce pinging & light detonation without screwing around with fuel mixture which on our cars we cant do anyway

Anyone want to experiment with this??

 

are you taking your Max to Mossy?

 

I took it in they gave me the same ol " you can get any car to nock and ping" BS.

That came straight from tech at mossy while in the bay at the dyno shop. They dyno shop techs were ": WTF>. your an idiot.. yes u can get a car to ping but how do we fix it with this model...LOL

The guy said its not something nissan is going to achnowledge. RON at el cajon CA mossy said .. same. I hear it but dont see a problem. So we cant fix it.

LIVE WITH IT> OR TRY the dyno shop;s suggestion and install a piggy back computer.. but remeber that will void your warranty..LMFAO

So they hear the problem but wont acknowledge it and if I want to fix it, it will be up to me to fix a manufacturing defect. WOW>. some how I convinced them i alone am better then all of nissan.

I WOULD LOVE to try a colder plug.. but I cant even buy stock plugs ..only dealer has stock plugs. NONE Of my auto parts stores have ANYTHING FOR MAX. not coils not plugs.. not anything. I LIVE in san diego CA big city full of auto parts stores and yet I cant get a damb plug. Anyone know where to buy colder range plugs?

 

Just an update. I put a separator on my pcv line and have almost eliminated the ping. Oil lowers octane. I'm thinking the blowby at low RPM went into the cylinder to be burned off, lowered the octane and BOOM...or rather PING.

Mine used to only do it around 40mph when coasting. After a year it was doing it from 20MPH to 45MPH under light throttle. The separator has all but stopped it. I now only hear it ping once at 40MPH, but very rarely. Heard it one time last week.