My wife drives a 2001 Maxima, 185k miles. Around March she complained it was running rough after she started it. She doesn't know much about cars so it was hard for her to describe things like a misfire to her. A few weeks later we leave a store parking lot and the car is missing really really bad. It would not accelerate over 20 mph. After 4 or 5 minutes it cleared up and ran great. I was really scratching my head. We continued running our weekend errands for another hour or two. At our last stop, we entered a Chinese carry out joint, ordered our food and waited for 20 min, and came back out to the car. It fired up but barely ran. Misfiring like mad! It made its way about 100 ft. and just died. Right in the middle of an intersection. Luckily a cop was driving by and nudged us another 100 ft into a parking lot and gave us a half mile ride home. I called a tow truck and ate my delicious Chinese. Drove my car back there an hour or so later when the tow truck arrived, and the car fired right up, and drove onto the flatbed. It was like nothing ever happened. I let the tow truck tow it home since I had both cars there.

A few weeks go buy with no further incidents, and it happened again. Called tow truck again, waited an hour, and the car was able to drive onto the tow truck. Another few weeks go by and we stop at the grocery store for a quick in and out. She told me to leave the car running, but I was against it (since we live in Cleveland) and I turned it off. Sure enough, it would not start. We waited another hour. Fired right up.


So, this car has, in the last 8 months, made 2 300+ mile road trips and reliably taken her to and from work 5 or 6 days a week. Fast forward to today. It is time for emissions testing, so she left her lab early and met me at the house. She came inside and hung around the house for 15-20 minutes and we left. I started the car and it was running rough (happens some times, but far from all the time), so I backed it out of the driveway and set there at the base of the drive waiting for traffic to clear. As soon as it did, I touched the gas and it died. Would start right back up, and run for maybe 1-2 seconds, and die.

***Finally, this happens at our house***

I go out and try to replicate the problem several times a week to no avail (multiplied by 10 months of this).

I grab some starter fluid and spray a bit in the air cleaner slot while she cranks the starter. It fires right up and stays running! She drives it up the driveway and it continues to run, albeit misfiring every 5 seconds or so, just a slight stumbe. No smoking or anything unusual.

I turn it off and we run a quick errand, come home 30 min later and the car runs smooth as ever. It does feel a little down on power, but I drive a much quicker car everyday, so that could be all in my head. Just doesn't have that off the line kick i seem to remember.




TL;DR Car has trouble starting and idling once in a blue moon, only after 30 minute plus drives, sits an hour and comes right back to life. Also feels down on power.

****I have spent hours using the search function all over the internet***

Also throws code P0171 bank 1 lean but has never thrown a CEL since we've owned it.


Where do I start guys? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

my Nissan pickup did the same thing, would fire up fine cold but when it was warm, it would chug and stall out when you tried to start it unless you gave it throttle

checked the coolant temperature sensor and it was unplugged, plugged it back in and fixed the problem. i would see if yours is bad

 

How does one go about checking to see if a CTS is garbage?

 

since youre not getting a code for it, probably best to test resistance of the sensor

this site sums it up better than i can

http://www.howstuffinmycarworks.com/...mp_sensor.html

 

It is funny though, the fuel mileage is not at all bad for her commute...14 miles of surface street stoplight traffic. I usually record it and 17.5 is her worst, averaging closer to 19. I snagged a CTS earlier and, after work tomorrow, I plan on cleaning the maf as well as IACV , and changing the CTS.

Thank you chrome91

 

For me, it happened to my 2002 6sp. It was running happily till one day I drove to work in a blizzard. (Dayton, OH winter 2012). The thing ran like crap 10 minutes into the drive. No idea if the rating of the plugs had anything to do with it or what. It was sluggish and had that multiple random engine misfire code.
But I changed all the spark plugs and it was running as new. This seems like a good starting point, just because they're cheap and are always "due anyway".

 

Plugs only have around 1k miles on them though.

 

I hate to ask this, but are they NGKs? Other than my experience, I think what you have stumps me at the moment.

 

I'm pretty sure they are.

 

did you ever figure out anything with this?

 

Negitive Sir. Still dealing with it.

 

I had to clean the downstream side of my throttle body with throttle body cleaner to fix my hot start problem.