In the morning when I throw the auto into drive and press the accelerator, I get revs but the maxima does not move forward. A day ago I was able to get it going by reving to 2,000. But today it was not liking that, so I dropped it into 1st and it was able to get going.

Once I drive for about 5-10 minutes this problem goes away. So far I have been told it could be the transmission (fluid, pump or clutch(s)) or the MAF going out.

What should I check into first? I apologize if this has been posted before, the search DOES not like me. I'd appreciate ANY help on this.

2002 maxima se with 180,000 miles on it.

 

A bad MAF won't affect the trans actually engaging a gear.

If the trans fluid you're using gets very thick at cold temps, it could cause the problem you're having. First thing I would do is swap it out for a good synthetic (when was the last fluid service?) before condemning anything else.

 

Agreed, this sounds nothing like a MAF sensor problem. Definitely check your transmission fluid. It wouldn't hurt to drop the pan and completely drain it and put fresh fluid in either.

I don't recommend taking it to a place to get flushed though. I hear that does more harm than good to an automatic transmission. Especially one that is experiencing problems or hasn't had regular fluid changes during its life. The reason being that when they flush it at high pressures whatever material or gunk that is in there from clutch wear etc can jam into the valve bodies or whatever else is in there. Definitely just change the fluid first and go from there.


At first that sounded like a torque converter problem to me, but when you said dropping the gear selector into 1st helped that leads me to believe it is also possible this could be an electronics problem as well. As far as I know, if you are at a dead stop, as far as the actual transmission is concerned there is no difference between drive and 1st. Both command the transmission to be in first gear. If this was an physical/mechanical problem with the transmission itself, in theory you should experience the same symptoms no matter if you are in Drive or 1st.

 

I pulled the drain plug and did a refill maybe 9 months ago. Since then I moved into Washington and the car did experience a cold(er) winter complete with snow/ice.

I'll have to put on my latex gloves and pickup some new fluid and do the drain-refill again once I have time.