was at the car wash tonight.. was driving home for like 3 miles with no problems and i was about 2 blocks from home and car started jerking.. i pulled to the side.. and then the car stalled so i started it again.. put it in drive and it stalled.. i started it again.. reved the engine.. it slowly went to 3k rpm took nearly 5 secs to do it.. so i put it in neutral and pushed it a lil bit so it would roll down the small hill i was at.. went past 5 stop signs without stopping and a cop comes from a street and flashes the reds and blues.. i kept going till i got home and told him wut happend.. and started the car infront of him.. and thank god he understood and didnt ticket me for missing stop signs..but i dont know wuts wrong wit the max.. any ideas?

 

Is it possible you got water in some electronics at the car wash if you power sprayed under the hood? It sounds like you aren't getting proper spark or perhaps you have something amiss in your fuel (water or something else preventing proper fuel flow to the injectors?).

 

same thing that happened to me when i fooled with the electrics.. car started but it would not go past 2k rpm even though i floored it.. hmm

maybe a loose connection with the wires or something. i think you got to get tripple A to give you a ride to the dealer!

 

Did you wash the engine too?

 

It happened to my Pathfinder 3 times after a carwash until I realized not to spray water upward at the left-rear end. There is a container with a little hose pointing downward. I think it connected to the gas tank.
The engine would shake like it will die any second. I just dis-connect the battery to reset the "check engine". Pour a bottle of Chevron cleaner into the gas tank. It took a tank or two to bring the car back to normal.
Did you try to clean under the car ?

 

you guys are worrying me a bit. but tonight was the 3rd time i high-pressure rinsed the salt from my undercarriage w/o a problem. let's get to the bottom of this.

 

I'm sure this isn't your problem, but I once filled up with gas, drove thru the carwash beside the station, THEN realized I had forgotten to put the cap back on the gas tank. Not smart.

I can't explain your problem, but it sure sounds like it is somehow related to the car wash. I do believe water floats on top of gas, so, unless the level of gas in your tank was quite low, I would not think water in the gas tank is at fault.

I used to have this problem back in the 'old days' whenever I cleaned the engine by using goop, etc, then hosing it down without covering the distributer, but I don't think distributers exist in the 6th gen Maxima.

 

Water is more dense than gasoline (water has more mass for the same amount of volume than gasoline - e.g., a liter of water has more mass (is "heavier") than a liter of gasoline), so even though gasoline will afford a very small amount of water to go in to solution with the gasoline, for all practical purposes any appreciable amount of water in the fuel would rest on the bottom of the tank. Hydrocarbons such as the ones commononly used as fluids in vehicles (like greases, fuels, waxes, oils, etc.) are less dense than water, so will "float" on top of water (this is like oil and vinegar (which is mostly water) dressing in that the oil separates out to the top of the vessel and the vinegar settles to the bottom).

 

Just seems too coincidental for the problems to start right after a car wash. There has to be a connection.

 

I used a high pressure washer under my hood back when i had my Mazda 929. This is where i F'ed up...very cold water on a very hot engine (some reason looking back at it, i dont think that was the brightest thing to do), and i guess too much water. Cause the damn car had the same symptoms you had. Water must have gotten some place it is not welcome. It surely has to do with you washing under the hood. But to remedy the issue, i just ran the car around on the HW for a while and problem gone.

 

naa didnt spray under the hood.. the dealer said that the engine was flooded with fuel...? weird.. because the car was running fine. they have the car for the last 2 dayz and they havent yet called me on an update. ill go later today and find out.

 

got the car back today and they found the problem.., one of the wire on the air mass flow sensor was out of the harness.. i understand that this problem would make the car stall like it did.. but wut i dont get is.. shouldnt the "service engine soon" or "check engine" light come on? i had NO lights appear