Hey everyone, I'm new here but have owned my 11 Maxima S for about eight years. I've had very few issues aside general maintenance. About three weeks ago we had a leaking valve cover gasket and motor mount replaced. And then...

My wife was leaving a parking lot getting onto a busy street and hit the accelerator and there was no power, like the engine was getting no fuel. Panicking, I'm sure, tried the pedal a few times with no response. So she puts it in neutral, and stops and restarts the car and now it just clicks. Fortunately she coasted into a parking lot and parks. She said the ABS light came on, dash lights flickered, and then went black. When I got there, I tried to turn the car on and there was ZERO power. I mean like the battery had been removed. So we tow it on a Saturday to her work, which is a Cadillac dealership. On Monday, one of her friends that's a tech looks at it and says a pulley tensioner froze up, the serpentine belt is cracked, and the alternator pigtail was burned up. So we replaced all of it plus put a new battery in. All is good by Thursday when everything is put on and as far as she can tell it's doing great.

Then, the following Monday night, two nights ago, she's coming home after picking up our daughter and the CEL comes on, which has never been on since I've owned it.

So on the way to work this morning, fortunately I was a few minutes behind her, she calls and says when she was accelerating to get on the highway from an on-ramp it lost all acceleration and she crept over to the shoulder. I got there a few minutes later, maybe five minutes, and it was still running just with a slightly rough idle. So I had her shut it off and turn it back on and it just clicked. So we had it towed to her work. Fast forward about two hours later and the tow truck driver calls me after he drops it off and says, Man, I think you just need a new gas pedal. Lol, I was like, what do you mean? He said when I was trying to get it on the truck I had to really push the pedal for it to even rev up and go. What??? You got it to start? You drove it up on the truck? I explained what happened and he was surprised because he said it started right up for him when he picked it up and when he dropped it off.

The same guy that worked on it told my wife he has no clue and would test the alternator and battery. She pulled the codes and what pulls up is below, you can't miss it!

Both instances were when she was trying to get up to speed fairly quickly, never slowing down or stopping.

Thank you in advance for your help!!!

 

What was the issue? I'm having the same trouble. Thanks

 

Yes, you describe exactly what happened to me a few months ago. Failed Alternator, which also killed my battery. Had to have them both replaced. Fortunately my battery was still under warranty, so no charge there. Word of advice. My failed alternator was replaced in 2021, I only put 25,000 km on it, Barely drove the car becuase it was covid time and I had since retired so driving overall was less, so timeline exceeded the one year warranty. That replacement was a Nissan "rebuilt" unit. It cost significantly less and carried the same 1 year warranty, so I thought why not? I'll never put a rebuilt one in again, I went with a new OEM one.