Hey all...I think one of my ignition coils on my 5-spd 99 Max SE-L has gone bad. In case you don't know, I have been told by few mechanics that it happens with Maximas occasionally...perhaps even more frequently. We have 3 front ignition coils and 3 back coils, which are different. That is why it's not worth buying one for the front and one for the back to test one which one is defective because they are anywhere from (Called 6 Nissan dealers) $84 to $105 a piece! So u r spending $200 to test something that may in the end not be defective. I want to share with you all this site I found. That guy is good...he really knows what he's talking about...everything from testing an ignition coil to bad Power Output Stage (POS) etc. He practically tells you how to test the coil packs before you spend money on them. I looked at a bunch of other sites...THEY SUCK! This guy is very detailed. There is only one downside...the car he tests the coils on is audi s4/s6, but the general idea remains the SAME! The actual boot, among other things, is nearly identical to how things are in the MAXIMA. Here is the page: http://www.sjmautotechnik.com/S4_Ignition.htm

 

Oh yeah...I posted this primarily because the problems he lists on the webpage are identical to the ones I am currently experiencing. I mean misfire after misfire, etc.

 

lots of people on the org use a multimeter to tests ignition coils...thats not costly or anything.

the coils on the 99's seem to be prone to failure. i've had to replace 1 of mine already and my car only has 65000KM on it. i found coils off a max with a blown engine, 6 of them for 30 bucks...can't go wrong with that.

also, my ecu told me which cylinder was misfiring, so i didn't have to actually test anything out. once i replaced it the problem went away.

 

I've read on the forums another way of testing it. Pull the codes from your ECU and lets say that it shows #3 misfiring, then what you would do is switch the #3 coil pack with #1 or #5 (since they're the same) and reset the ECU. Now pull the codes again and if the misfire code went to #1 or #5, then it's the coil pack. If it stayed at #3 then it's not the coil pack

 

Haynes manual