Here is the story, timeline actually, of my broken Maxima. Get some tissue, this is kind of long:

12-30-01: Starting problems begin to occur. The engine cranks for a few seconds, the starter kicks out, and the engine cranks again before starting. It only happens once every few starts. My 2000 Maxima is 20 months old and has 40k miles (just out of warranty, of course)

1-15-02: The starting problem begins to happen at every startup.

1-18-02: Take the car to a mechanic. He says the bendix spring in the starter is malfunctioning. His prognosis is to put in a new starter. So I pay him $350 for a new starter. Pick the car up and it starts without a problem every single time.

4-4-02: Starting problems begin to occur again, just as before. Only once in a great while.

4-14-02: The starting problem begins to happen at every startup, again.

4-15-02: Take the car back to the mechanic who fixed it. He believes he got a faulty new starter. He further states the starter was a Nissan starter and it was brand new. (I can confirm it was brand new, because I saw the box, and it did say Nissan on it.) He calls his supplier to find out what is wrong. His supplier says that Nissan does not engineer a large enough starter for the application. But the mechanic says he will replace it at no charge.

4-15-02: I drop the car off around 1pm. The mechanic calls at 3pm to say it will be ready by 6pm. I go to pickup the car at 6pm. It will not start. He says he put in a brand new starter, but there seems to be intermittent problems starting it. He tries it again. After a minute of on and off, and horribly sounding, cranking, the car starts. He says to leave it, and he will plug it into the computer tomorrow to diagnose it.

4-16-02: I decide to do what I should have done in January; take the car to the Nissan dealer.

4-17-02: The service manager calls me and says they have used the diagnose computer and found no faults. So they will next check the electrical system.

4-17-02: The service manager calls me and says the problem is a short in the computer. They have ordered a new computer to be overnited and the car should be ready tomorrow. It will be covered under emmisions warranty.

4-18-02: The service manager calls me and says the computer has been replaced. The car started successfully on each of 4-5 attempts. An hour later, the car would not start at all. Next they will check all the wiring.

4-19-02: After checking nearly all the wiring, and making over a dozen calls to Nissan they cannot find the problem. They currently have a "team" of mechanics looking at the car who are stumped. But they "will definitely find the problem." Eventually.

4-22-02: The service manager calls me and says his top mechanic is currently researching the problem, and is in contact constantly with Nissan. And they still cannot find the problem. All the wiring has checked out. They are still working on it though.

4-23-02: I am now exasperated. My mom, who is pretty tight with the general manager at the dealership, calls me to tell me she went over there to check up on my car, to see if they were indeed working on it. In the service garage they have my car up on a lift, and another Maxima up on the lift next to it. There are two guys there comparing electrical readings between the two cars. I believe they are now exasperated. She said the top mechanic over there was heading out with a stack of books and manuals to further research the problem with Nissan. We decide to give them until Friday to come up with something before giving them hell.

4-23-02: The service manager calls me and says the car will be ready at 10am tomorrow. The prognosis: Corrosion between the engine and transmission was causing a ground loss to the starter. They pulled the engine and transmission apart and noticed the corrosion. They cleaned it and put it back together and now the car starts fine.

So, my broken Maxima is ok now. Tomorrow they have to reprogram all the keys and who knows what else. The service manager told me he "beat on the guys at Nissan" and got them to cover most of the work. They will be covering $1500 of the work. That leaves me $240 (three hours of labor). I was inclined to argue and infer that all of it should be warranted due to the nature of this problem. But then I decided I should count myself lucky that arent trying to stick it to me. Besides, an extended warranty has a deductible of $250 anyway, so I guess I am even. Not counting the $350 I paid joe mechanic. But that was my own stupidity.

So there is my story for the annals.

 

wow alot of troubles atleast its okay now

 

Well written interesting story it sucks but well written
Glad to here things are better now
good luck

 

Hmmm...I'm not sure if your starting problem is related to mine at all, but ever since the car was new, it will sometimes just sit there and crank and will not start. It will start on the next try, however.

This usually happens when I have shut the car off and then try to start it back up within a hour or so.

The dealership has not been able to duplicate the problem yet.

Green

 

My mom has had the problem you describe twice on her Maxima. Sometimes when it is warm, and you are restarting the car after a short time, you need to press the throttle to the floor.

Jimmy

 

Never tried pressing the throttle to the floor yet...it sounds like it might be a fuel pump issue.

Maybe it'll go away when I install new pumps for the blower! hehe

I'm just dreaming...

 

You should have gotten everything FREE! The powertrain covers you until 60k.

 

They can argue that it's electrical though.

 

I have the similar situation (hopefully it is not the "same" cause"

once a while it takes two times to start the car....
first turn of the key, u hear the starter but it just wont start the engine

pulled the key out....tried it again.
it starts.

one time that was really scary....the rpm jumps so high after the car was started on the second time...had to turn it off and try it again.

btw, happened again today
I had to turn the key for 5 second and hear the starter clicking.

 

Great write-up. I can't believe you got that kind of service from a Dealer, they deserve a pat on the back. I agree, pay the $240 and consider yourself lucky.

By the way, Looks like a perfect time/excuse for a Trade up to the '02 or an '03 . Take the high trade in value and run. Gremlins are notorius for sticking around .

 

I guess that's another tip for the rest of us who may encounter starting problems in the future... Check the ground wire for the starter. That's is awesome that you got such great service from a Nissan Dealer.