At 30,000 miles, I started hearing a rattling/gurgling noise from underneath my Max when I excellerated from 30-80 mph. The dealer first said it was because of low octane, (actual 93), then oxygenated fuel,(in August?). All I get is excuses and no answers. Today my check engine light came on temporarily. Has anyone had this problem and solved it. They think it's the Nox sensor, I think the catalytic converter.

 

Could it be pinging? Perhaps you've got a bad ignition coil?

 

ive had a similair sound since about 11000 miles, im at 19000 now, and ive been in three times. all they give me is "we ran diagnostic" and bs like that....the last guy i showed said it was probably a loose tin(insert word here.....i forget what its called) some kind of heat shield or something down by the exhaust system....i still have it and i dont know what it is either....NISSAN SERVICE SUCKS....btw its not pinging, its a much different sound, imagina putting 15 small pieces of gravel in a folgers can, then shaking it a little...thats the sound i get....almost like sand hitting the side of the car....but it happens in the rain too haha

 

Hi folks,
I'm new to the posting on the sight, but have been viewing it for awhile. I am the proud (most of the time) owner of a 1996 super balck maxima se 5 speed and a 2000 mahogany maxima se auto. My wife and I bought the 2000 first (new), and I liked it so much that we sold my truck with a corvette motor and a 6 speed tranny and bought the 1996 max. Enough about the life history, here is the problem. The 2000 with less than 25000 miles on it has the same mysterious rattle that everyone is talking about, however every time I take it to the dealer (3 times now) they cannot seem to hear it. Has anyone found a solution? The other day we picked the car up from the dealer after hours, and on the entrance ramp to the freeway the darn rattle started. I think it's something to do with the cat heat sheild, but the dealer said they checked it and there was nothing wrong. It is really bothersome considering we have only had the car 1 year. It didn't stop us from purchasing the 96 max, but it is making me wonder if it a friday assembly line special.

 

im at 20.5k and still have it....get used to the fact that nissan service is terrible.....i have isolated it to below the transmission tunnel(perhaps in it....scary) but still dont know...im taking it in again soon, ill post up if they figure it out

 

Here I am again posting about my 2000 Max. So we have taken to the dealer for the 5th time and finally got the service manager to go for a ride to listen for the noise. We finally heard it after about 20 minutes of driving and he was to say the least perplexed. He couldn't believe the noise takes that long to start and then is consistant. He called a tech line and they sent him some "powerful fuel system cleaner" Waited a week and got the stuff, same Chevron cleaner you buy at auto parts store. Needless to say it didn't fix the problem. He has now called some roaming engineer they have to come look at the car. This is driving me nuts. I was told about a substitute for commodity that Nissan North America might be able to do. Has anyone done this, how does it work? I'm really getting irritated by the whole thing. I've told the dealer about this web site and that other owners have the same problem. They just look at me like I'm an idiot. I'll keep posting in case I get a solution.

 

ive been noticing this sound also recently in my 2000 auto and i cannot figure out what it is either. it does sound like a heat sheild or sumthin rattlin and i usually hear it after drivin around for a while and under fair acceleration. weird...

 

I've got that problem too sometimes. Don't know what it is and it bothers me sometimes. I don't feel like taking it to Nissan for that because I know the sound probably won't happen with them and then I will just waste a trip to the service station.

 

I too have the same problem. I have taken it to the dealer to get it checked, took one of the mechanics for a ride and of course it didnt make the sound. a couple of months later a bought and installed the denso iridium spark plugs(nothing but garbage), when i drove the car it made the rattle noise much much more than usual. so I went ahead and took them off right away and put the stock ones back in. Later on I called the dealer and asked them if they can test the coils to see if they are faulty but they said they cant unless they take it for a ride.
With that said first, can ingition coils be inspected by removing them and also could it be more likely that it is the coils by what happend with the spark plug swap?

 

1 month ago, the dealership replaced all six ignition coils. A factory sevice rep happened to stop by and heard my story. So far, I haven't had the problem. They know about the problem even though they want to play stupid. Press them to change your coils.

 

oh nice they replaced the coils! gotta get it through thier thick skulls....
did you also notice any power increase, some people before posted they may be losing power due to bad coils.

 

Hey, took your advice and pressed the sercive Dept to chenge the coils. It appears to work, however we still occasionally have a hard start problem on the 2000 Max. Right now I'm really irritated though. The car has been in the shop 15 times, and we've only had the car for 17 months. Nissan has offered an extended service plan of 7 years 100k miles, and 1 month free car payment, but that doesn't solve our problems with the car. Any one got any ideas?

 

When they replaced the coils, did they replace ALL of them? Also, while they had the coils out did they bother to check and/or replace the sparkplugs? Sometimes one or more plugs can get messed up from faulty ignition coils and that may be causing your hard starts.

 

Count me in also, it becomes real obvious when i floor the gas pedal or whenever i go up hill, the sound becomes increasingly loud otherwise during normal driving the i dont have that sound .

 

There is a TSB on the coils (sure it sticky). If you need to replicate the pinging noise...find a long hill to go up (longer and steeper the better) and go up it with about 2000rpm. I guarantee you will replicate the pinging at will.

I remember when I worked to get this fixed before the TSB was released. It was like pulling teeth at the dealership.

By your initial description, it sounded like the heat shield above the cat was loose or something.