My 94 (94K miles)Maxima tends to buck every once in a while. It does not seem to mater what speed and it is not necessarily under a load. It is very random and seems to be more than one cylinder dropping out, its almost like it looses all ignition for a split second. 15K miles ago I did timing belt and plugs. I did not do the wires which is my fist idea of the problem but it seems more severe than a little skip or miss, any ideas?

 

My car does that every once in a blue moon. I think the maf freaks out. Try taking that connector off and cleaning both ends of the connector with a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol. Then apply some dielectric grease on the terminals and see if that helps. Could also be a bad ground on the maf also. You might have to run an independant ground wire to it.

 

Can you give me a little more info on the MAF, what is it, and where is it?

 

Mass Aiflow Adapter. Detects temp of the air thats being taken in and all sorts of stuff like that. It is that little black thing thats right before your air intake box. It has wires coming out of it.

 

Close. It measures the Mass of the air, not the temp. 4-gens have ambient temp sensors but 3-gens don't. It sorta take temp into considering in an indirect way as hotter is less dense thus has less mass.

 

Knew that too but I always thought they measured temp too. Thanks for the correction.

 

Cleaned connection last nite, all looked pretty good but car did not buck once today 35 miles to work, yet it does not do it every day, time will tell. Thanks, I'll be back.

 

Come to find out was wires that was bad. Did water test and there arking all over the place. Replaced cap, wires, rotor last night, MUCH better now!

 

bucking huh? vwinks car does that sometimes, but thats only when i drive :crazy:

 

Well I thought I was fixed .... Car runs much better and only skips, bucks, or starts to die very seldom now. I noticed more when hot, in drive and stopped - engine dies down for a split second like it looses a cylinder or two ????? Has plenty of power never (yet) breaks down on aceleration and seems pretty steady while crusing at 60-70 mph.

 

It measures the resistance across the wire which changes due to the temperature change as the air blows across it.
That make sense?

 

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a "water test"?

 

you mist the wires/cap with water to check for arcing or poor running

 

I relplaced all that stuff already...

 

Don't want to hijack the thread, but have some input here...

Some of these symptons sound similar to a problem I have with my '94 SE. I'm pulling a fairly regular Knock Sensor reading from the ECU, and have confirmed with resistance tests that it is apparently non-functional at the moment, but haven't gotten that fixed yet.

Could the Knock Sensor cause the kind of momentary RPM drop-offs described here? Maybe the timing is being retarded because of false readings?

When I notice this the worst is either sitting at a stop with the car in gear waiting for a light and the car will either die or will come close to it. When it does die, many times it will die again when I re-start the car and put it in gear - much to my frustration and to those behind me...

I saw on another forum that this symptom might be a result of burning too high an octane fuel at higher altitude? C/S is 6000ft. Any thoughts on that?