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Purchased a really inexpensive 98 that has a great interior and exterior for my 16 year old. A few blemishes but not much. Car had an obvious issue when I bought it - no power under 30mph (yay) but ran perfect over 30. We discussed the issues and risks and he decided he wanted the car... The dealer was nearly 2 hours away so he offered to tow it to me at no cost to me.
car gets here today and doesn’t crank. Turns over fine, but won’t crank. Thinking it has something to do with the camshaft position sensor - odb2 scan tool shows p0340 and p0100.
Will be ordering an OEM cps.
i started pulling the MAF out for a cleaning and realized the tube from the inlet resonator to the valve cover was broke. It had a yellowy job weld substance on it to try to repair and that was covered with black tape that made it difficult to notice until I moved the resonator box. Considering replacing with CAI (recommendations here?) if I can’t find one at a junk yard because the part is $260ish (yikes)
they did an oil change after the test drive so it went from older looking oil to fresh... was thinking it may have had shavings in it when I was checking it out after I got it home (didn’t see any at test drive), but the more I looked the more it seemed like bits of sludge and running it over a magnet didn’t pull any of the bits out. The bits weren’t shiny like metal but almost like loosened up bits of dried/burnt oil.
This’ll be a fun project - any advice would be great. I’m going to be browsing the past topics especially on the CAI to see if that’s the route I want to go
Post a picture of the broken part, I probably have it.
If you want a CAI, buy one like this.
I can't say anything about the quality, however the design is good. You can use it as a short ram or a true cold air intake.
Oh and mileage is in the range of 270k - don’t know the exact off the top of my head. kid had a budget of $1800 for a car and we effectively purchased the car for $570 and $230 to get it to the house since I lack a truck/trailer atm
A view of the specific part. This has several hose attachments - which is the logic behind wondering if going to perhaps a CAI would be a good idea. Not specifically for power gain, but as an alternative to the dealer price (though we will be going to pull a part in Birmingham Friday to see if any of their maximas have one in good condition) Sucks they want so much when all it is is a plastic box ... I get that it is supposed to muffle the sounds of the intake, but yeesh This is the nipple that was broken off. I cleaned it up a little bit thinking I might consider getting a plastic welder and trying to weld it back together since it is polypropylene and should be able to weld PP... but I keep getting ahead of where I need to be since the boy wants to do the work and he’s at his grandparents
Last edited by Jason Chrest; Nov 27, 2019 at 09:38 PM.
you are lucky, there is always someone parting out a car in these forums. or jsutter has one as mentioned. looking for parts, go to classified section for 4th gens
the broken part would cause a massive air leak.
the car should rUn a lot better once it's replaced
yeah when I saw it I let out a choice word or two, then when I called the dealer and he told me the price I was understanding of their half hashed attempt to fix it lol.
Originally Posted by max ride 41
you are lucky, there is always someone parting out a car in these forums. or jsutter has one as mentioned. looking for parts, go to classified section for 4th gens
That was something that really didn’t even cross my mind to do. When jsutter mentioned he might have one I was kicking myself for not even thinking about folks here possibly having a lot of spare just in case parts. Planning to grab a bit of stuff from Pull-A-Part for just that reason.
Landed a couple of those boxes for $10. A few coil packs, a couple MAFs, a console lid (in perfect shape), and a couple OEM camshaft position sensors.
cleared the codes for the MAF and CPS. Installed new components and she let me down.
turning over but won’t crank. Added gas thinking the gauge might be wrong, checked fuses (fuel pump is running when trying to crank), but still no crank.
not throwing codes either.
sidenote there is whirring from the tape deck in the radio but the radio won’t power up (planning to replace) and I’ll be checking the FSM tonight but sounds like the oil pump is running when in the on position and it almost sounds like when you put the baseball card in a bike tire. Thinking I may have to change the oil pump
I think that you are hearing the heater fan. Sounds like it has a leaf or something inside the squirrel cage blower. Turn the heater fan to the off position.
I'm assuming that your term cranking and turning over mean different things? Most of us agree that turning over and cranking mean the same thing. It means that the starter is rotating the flyweel and the crankshaft. Do you mean that the starter motor does rotate, but the flywheel and crankshaft do not rotate?
To me -
turning over means trying to start
cranking means actually starting
car ran at dealer the day I test drove and day I paid for it, but when the tow truck picked it up it wouldn’t start and hasn’t since.
every hose and harness has been reassembled as it should be - did not check the starter wiring, but intend to do that In the morning. Thanks!
Again, our members consider cranking and turning over to mean that the starter is rotating the engine.
Both mean the same thing.
Did you remove a cable from the battery when you worked on the car?
Turn the headlights on. Are they bright? Do they remain bright if you turn the heaterm fan switch and the rear window defroster on?
if not, you could have corroded contacts at the battery, or the cables.Not enough power flows through the contacts to rotate the starter under those conditions.
Understood - coming from an electronics background so apologies for the confusing terminology.
thanks for all the advice too, and yes power was disconnected. Someone had ate up the terminals with pliers so I had already planned to replace the terminals. I’m not at the car right now to follow up with some of your checks you mentioned but I’ll be hitting them in the morning. I’ll remove the intake assembly so I can get down to the starter to verify everything there is properly connected, hopefully finding something amiss. I wish I knew what their mechanic had done with it because he was trying to troubleshoot why it wouldn’t accelerate after I bought it and before the tow truck got there. So I assume something with what he was doing is what has it not starting atm
Also that engine bay sound was coming from around below the starter area (driver side). Can’t hear it in the car but can when you’re under the hood... my first guess was pump because that’s kind of what it sounds like (or like you said a fan). I do know the cabin AC fan was off (assuming that is what you mean by heater fan?)
the sound is with the key to the on position (first noticed while waiting for odb scanner to connect when son turned the key to on)
the problem is almost certainly related to the battery terminals.
occasionally members have found additional corrosion where the negative cable is bolted to the body. This is more likely if the car lived in an area where road salt is used.
- replaced battery terminals and verified the ground was good
- found the vacuum hose for the MAP was disconnected (and tucked down at the starter 🤷🏻♂️) and returned the hose to the MAP as it should be
- starter connections are solid (turning over the car drives all the pulleys too - albeit maybe a little slow maybe - not sure)
- found another tube (picture below) that the three of us under the hood couldn’t figure out where it originated or where it went (friend thinks it was a breather line for transmission)
- sound when on and not trying to crank is coming from the transmission. Not sure what is in the transmission that would drive without the engine running? I think the more accurate description of the sound may be like an arc welder click? The sound goes away when you manually open the throttle (again the car is not running)
- noticed the evap purge valve gets really warm to the touch (unsure if that is normal)
- replaced cam position sensor with the other one we got from JY and no luck.
- friend sprayed in some fuel to the throttle to see if it would fire up but no luck.
- still not popping codes or starting... got to grab a meter and go through the FSM. Tried to do the bits that felt more obvious but to no avail.
- Good tech coming to take a look at it tomorrow. Thought is something simple is being overlooked
Last edited by Jason Chrest; Nov 30, 2019 at 12:38 PM.
car worked before the used dealer mechanic worked on it - wasn’t starting when tow truck driver picked it up to bring it here. All the steps I’ve done have been retraced numerous times, can’t get any info from dealer to find out what the mechanic did from the time I bought it (when it would start) and the time the tow truck driver picked it up (when it wouldn’t)
Checking various sensors for corrosion is what led me to finding the lack of a vacuum hose on the MAP which we later found tucked behind some wires down near the starter.
car has been in the south from all I can tell - bought in Alabama and carfax shows titled in Georgia and Alabama
car worked before the used dealer mechanic worked on it - wasn’t starting when tow truck driver picked it up to bring it here. All the steps I’ve done have been retraced numerous times, can’t get any info from dealer to find out what the mechanic did from the time I bought it (when it would start) and the time the tow truck driver picked it up (when it wouldn’t)
Checking various sensors for corrosion is what led me to finding the lack of a vacuum hose on the MAP which we later found tucked behind some wires down near the starter.
car has been in the south from all I can tell - bought in Alabama and carfax shows titled in Georgia and Alabama
sounds like the dealer screwed you to me, car was running and now it doesn't? f that, i'd call them up and say your towing it back over for a refund. shouldn't have to go through all of that bs to get it running imo.
sounds like the dealer screwed you to me, car was running and now it doesn't? f that, i'd call them up and say your towing it back over for a refund. shouldn't have to go through all of that bs to get it running imo.
this is what I feel like doing... the car has a beautiful exterior and interior though. Feels like I am missing something simple.
i had a Tech come look at it over the weekend, turns out my ODB scanner and my friend’s scanner don’t read all the codes. The tech plugged up and it threw codes for the crankshaft pos sensor... I went ahead and ordered both (came in today), installed both and still no start. I’m planning to break out the multimeter tomorrow and start trying to see if I can figure out where everything is going wrong. Seems to me like a grounding issue since the cam and cranks share the same ground. The engine ground points referenced in the FSM have been thoroughly cleaned, the battery ground was cleaned too... considering swapping the starter even though it seems to be spinning everything up just fine.
add:
verified I am getting fuel pressure beyond the fuel filter and at the fuel rail.
need to check to see if I am getting any power to the coils
Last edited by Jason Chrest; Dec 4, 2019 at 05:05 PM.
Slowly going through process of elimination (only working about an hour or two a day while showing my son what I’m doing)
the FSM symptom matrix chart for no start hit on a couple other areas I wasn’t tracking yet so...
-verified injectors were clicking (after already verifying the fuel is being pumped to the fuel rail which fell into the fuel pump circuit check) as part of the injector circuit check.
- next step is checking air flow via the idle air control valve. Walking through all the steps - everything checked out good. IACV needed a cleaning as it had carbon build up on it, but wasn’t significant. Everything with it worked well but the Phillips head screw on the backside was an absolute pain in the fudge box to put back on with the tools I have (need a shorter screwdriver)
-battery check is good but need to charge it soon, all these failed start attempts has drained it a bit. Jumped for start tests.
the other step 1 checks for the matrix are MAF sensor circuit which I would think would be good but I’m going to verify this. MAF is also one of the inputs to the ECM to send ignition to the engine coils (I did not pull them to check for spark since I’m trying to teach my son to follow manuals for troubleshooting when you don’t have any idea what is going on, but I’m pretty positive there is no spark).
Two more step 1 checks are engine coolant temperature circuit and ignition circuit. Plan is to check the MAF circuit tomorrow and then the ignition circuit. I’m going to save the temp circuit for last (watch it get me)... but I do get a good coolant temp on my scanner so I think it is good.
The FSM has a flow diagram for the electronic ignition system (which is the direction I am leaning). That shows the following components required for ECM to send power out:
so after the stage 1 checks... if they don’t prevail then I’ll start going step by step through the above for the electronic ignition.
still figure it’s something simple but going to hit what I can via the FSM and if that don’t work - off it goes to a garage with a serious diagnostic tool lol
also using the ECM to pop codes via the CEL - 5 slow flashes and 5 fast flashes (which I read indicates no fault)
Last edited by Jason Chrest; Dec 5, 2019 at 05:32 PM.
Verified ignition circuit is good (though I still don’t believe it has an ignition signal). Replaced some fairly rough spark plugs with NGK laser platinums and had one coil pack boot that was broken... still no luck.
The lines can be blown out with an air compressor.
Caution: disconnect each line at both ends so that critical components are not destroyed from over pressure.
A friend of mine had this issue with a 1996 pathfinder. I learned about destroying parts from personal experience. It was fun watching charcoal spew from the lines though.
While I don't mean to discourage you, perhaps another, lower mileage Maxima in better condition might be worth considering.
No codes at all just isn’t starting. Cranks all day (as long as the battery is charged) but won’t start.
When I first got it we found codes for camshaft sensor, crankshaft sensor (POS), and MAF. Have replaced and repaired the causes for those. Found two bad coil packs and replaced... and now this.
oh I don’t disagree at all JVG. I’m ready to get rid of this car 😂 problem will be trying to get my $$ back on it
