I have a 99 Maxima with an auto transmission that my wife has been driving for the last few weeks. However this morning not sure why she didn't notice but she had the car in 2nd gear and drove it all the way like that. It started to overhead and then it died on the side of the road. When I got there my heart sank as I saw a pool of oil on the road. However does not look like it blew the head gasket but then again where could this oil have come from. The radiator is full of antifreeze, however there is no oil left in the engine. I am hoping the car shut off when it got hot. However, it may have just quit once the ran dry of oil? Any ideas and words of encouragement? This motor had 317,xxx miles and ran great. Just wondering if its possible if it can be saved. Thanks in advance.

 

I don't think your wife told you the whole story.

Did she drive it at freeway speeds? Did she hear ominous noises before the car died?

Did she continue to drive while these noises happened?

Had you checked the oil level recently before that happened?

It's safe to run the engine briefy. I bet that it makes banging noises.

It's possible that the engine has a broken connecting rod, and a hole in the engine block.

I'd put the car on jacks. Look for where the oil came from.

 

Thanks for the reply. So long story short the motor is toast. My Maxima is a 99 with California emissions. I have sourced another 99 maxima motor or so they say and it looks be a federal spec. Is it possible to use that engine or would I need to swap the emissions stuff over from my old engine? Thanks again.

 

I don't know the answer to that question.

So what did you discover?

Keep in mind...... your engine needs some things done before you install it.

Our engines will need certain work soon to eventually.

It's fairly easy to do some preventative maintenance on the engine before installation. It's much more difficult to deal with all that stuff later, probably several times.

You could remove the intake manifold to work on the valve covers, the knock sensor, have the fuel injectors rebuilt, clean out the egr system door handle tube.

Replacing the water pump is far less difficult to replace before it's installed. It's not fun then.
It's far less fun doing that after installing the engine.

Might as well clean the iacv, and the throttle body.

This will seem like a lot of work.

The pay off is a very reliable engine.

 

You can use a Fed spec engine. Just swap over the emissions equipment. Cali spec has swirl valves in the lower intake manifold, electric EGR and different catalytic converters for instance.

 

317,000 miles in California driving is amazing. Consider that golden. I think your Wife is trying to tell you something, she's tired of driving a high mileage 20 year old car...time to get into something newer...perhaps with a warrantee. She should pay for it though, not you.

 

Thanks guys she just started driving it the last two weeks. I have owned it since 2003 and its in east Tennessee. So that answers my question I will just swap over the emissions stuff from the old engine. Found a used one for around $250 but mileage is unknown. Anyone have suggestions on where to get a replacement?

 

Hmmm......

I suppose that it's time to talk things over.

Yes, you can fix your car. It would be a lot of work.
The mileage is quite high already. A good engone could go much farther.

You are in California. Im in Portland.

We know that there are plenty of rust free Maxima's
around for 1500 or so. I'd expect that quite a few have lower mileage. Of course those cars would need maintenence done soon.

Or perhaps she would like a different car .

 

I just did an appraisal at Edmunds.com/appraisal and your car may be worth about $21 trade-in. That's if it's running but overall in rough condition. That means after you get the motor, do the work, the car is still worth $21. It's probably worth about $300 as scrap. Look man, if she was in mint condition with low miles, maybe, but at this point, put it out to pasture and move on. Sage advice, trust me. (talking about the car, not your wife)

https://www.edmunds.com/nissan/maxim...praisal-value/
Note without adding options there's actually a negative trade in value...

 

Depends on what you want to do with it, Insurance is so cheap on the car, no car payment, car not worth much but parts are cheap and these 4th gen's are great cars..The overall cost of maintaining it is cheap. But that being said, It all depends on your wife. She may like the car but doesn't want to be driving around in it despite they're hitting 20+yrs old. Have an option to get a somewhat newer 10 yr old car, either paid off or not, a little higher insurance, and some cars are not well built. Or buy a car a few years old, be more n likely stuck with car payments+ higher insurance rates+ maintenance+gas that can easily be a couple hundred a month.

Say one makes $40k a yr, does it make sense to buy a $10k-15k car or a $2k-4k car? The right choice would be the $2k-4k car paid off...Save up for future breakdowns. Cars should only be 10% of take-home pay to afford it comfortably. I can only give you advice, but it's up to you to what the right decision is for you and if you're okay with that.

Old cars usually mean it's the owner's responsibility to be able to afford the funds if insurance doesn't want to cover. Some cars like german's like to break a lot and parts are expensive. Insurance is a business to get as much money in and pay as little out. Look up Scotty Kilmer on youtube. A great mechanic who's been in the industry for 50+yrs who gives so much great advice on cars that he speaks the truth on. Guess what, he drives a 20+ yr old Toyota lol, yes he can fix things himself and his wife drives a $3k Lexus. All cheap paid off cars. Some people like driving paid off cars, some don't, or some don't like driving old cars, some do. Some like driving nice cars, to some it's not that important to them. It's all up to what you want out of life.

 

I tend to agree with JoshG. I get it from folks all the time, "Why don't you get a new car." The thing is a drive a DD that is paid for around town, when I go out of town I rent a nice new car and I enjoy it then return it. It's so much cheaper. IDK buy her a used Z car :-)