Greetings to group - new to the forum, having just purchased a 2000 i30 with 170k at auction. Based on car interior, I think prior owner took pretty good care of this. But I have no prior maintenance records for this car and trying to get some advice from others here. It is not burning oil, runs pretty well, power seems ok. Have put on 300 miles since purchase a month ago, it starts reliably and everything electronic on the car works. Other than P0430 described below, no error codes thrown. 'Trying to get another 50k out of it but am facing some issues and want to avoid sinking a huge amount of $ into this. I have downloaded the Infiniti manual and have a Haynes manual for Maxima.

1 - Vehicle Experiencing an oil leak that I believe is coming from valve cover gaskets. It's not a huge amount (1/2 dollar sized on pavement every 24 hours...)
2 - In last 3 days -- I've started getting P0430 "Catalyst system efficiency below threshold bank 2". I am wondering whether this could be caused by my filling it up with low octane. I've reset the code, and it comes right back. Have topped off with 93 octane and watching it. From what I've read here -- I should avoid replacing O2 sensor and assume cat is bad. Thinking of running lacquer thinner thru as suggested here:
So my questions are -

1 - While tearing in to replace gaskets, what other things should I be doing? Plugs, valve adjustment, pressure test, what else?
2 - The suspension is pretty awful, shocks are clearly in need of replacing. But steering is overall rather sloppy and the frontend makes some squeaks and cracks that don't sound natural. Any recommendations for online tutorial for working on suspension on these?

I've done a fair bit of working on motorcycles in the past but replacing valve gaskets on this beast would be most involved service I've ever done on a car. 'Have had successful recent experience replacing lower control arm and total brake service (rotors turned, calipers lubed, fluid flushed/bled.) I really want to be able to work on this thing (and for financial reasons sort of have to!) -- but also want to avoid messing things up worse than they are. Any other insight from those of you working on these to make this thing go?

Thanking you -- Jonathan

 

Hello and Welcome to the Org.I just finished resolving my P0430 code.I have a '00 I30 with about 190K miles and its a Cali spec.I can assure you that the laquer thinner method will not work.I watched that same video and tried it.The code came back after about 20 miles.I had an infiniti stealership attempt to tell me to replace my MAF.Didnt work. Gut the precat and install spark plug antifoulers.This is the absolute cheapest insurance.check out the two links below

http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...maf-p0430.html

http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...t-problem.html

 

Memphis - thanks for the feedback, have been reading varied stuff on the non-foulers. Some saying it is a last resort sort of thing potentially damaging cylinders. Sounds like you've had good experience with that approach though. Will tear into it this weekend to see how difficult to remove that precat.