SES, TCS, Slip on but scanner won't pull any codes
 

My car has been running poorly for a while. Starts easily, but idle is rough, exhaust stinks, and it has no power. SES light is on along with TCS and SLIP. I drove it to O'Reilly's to have them scan it and it would not scan. The guy said he's never had that happen to him before. So, was this guy clueless or can there be a reason the scanner wouldn't read any codes. There is obviously something wrong, and it seems like I should start with coils based on what I've read on here. I'm just curious if anybody else has had obvious issues but scanning shows nothing.

Usually the coils spark a ABS light as well... BUT if your abs light doesn't light up then you don't know its there, When you first start the car and it goes into "light check mode" does the abs light come on? ON mobile so I can't see what year you drive, but there is a way you can pull your abs codes on the 01 and down, they took that out on the 02-03 model.

What year? I'm assuming this is your 2000 Maxima?

Exhaust stinks like what? Rotten eggs? Unburned fuel?

Need more info...

I had a similar issue when I changed the spark plugs and didn't connect in a proper way one of the ignition coil. Maybe 1 of your ignition coils it's starting to fail, try to check everyone of them before anything else.

Did you do anything to your engine before this issue?

Go to other place, this is close to impossible. Most likely guy had problems with his scan tool. I'd simply buy scan tool for myself, very good investment.

I didn't notice the ABS light. It is the 2000. The exhaust smells like unburned gas. After pulling the coils one at a time to see how it affected the car, the TCS and SLIP lights have gone away and it's running much better. Don't know why that would change anything at all. SES light is still on. Took to O'Reilly again and they had the same issue. Scanner says it cannot connect to the computer. The car has 176,000 miles on it and the coils do not have any dots on them so I'm assuming coils is the logical place to start. Seems like there were two that didn't really change much when I unplugged. Thinking maybe I'll try autozone tomorrow to see if they also have an issue.

Coils often 'come back' just to go out again after some time. When it happens, disconnect one at a time to find culprit. Find at least one, replace then rinse and repeat. TCS and SLIP + SES are actually classic, I never seen ABS on mine either and I replaced all 6 at the end.

So, I took the car to Autozone today and they were able to pull the codes no problem. 1320 and 300 which he said is ignition and multiple mis-fires. He did not think it was the coils but the camshaft position sensor. I'm thinking coils is most likely bet?

It is most likely single coil. If the car is running OK now even that coil 'recovered' for time being and you have to wait until it decides to stop working again. At that point you follow the procedure above to determine which one is bad.

If it was CPS you wouldn't make to Autozone- ECU shuts down the engine when CPS goes bad.

Agreed. I had a similar issue with intermittent misfiring and P1320 code (no P300 code). It ended up being one coil. I bought one front and one rear from the dealer and and just switched it until there was a change and I found the bad coil.

You could have more than one bad coil, but getting a new coil and switching it is a good place to start.