Hello I was hoping someone can give me advice on my 2004 Nissan Maxima. I started having problems with it in Dec. 2022. I was driving home, when the battery and brake light went on. The lights dimmed and the car could only accelerate up to 20mph. Thankfully I made it to a gas station. I had to have it towed because we gave it a jump but it would not maintain a charge. I took it to Goodyear. They said it was just replacing the alternator. Then he calls me a couple of hours later and asked if I had smelled smoke when it died on me. I said no of course not. He said he would need to have it checked by another mechanic because he didn't know what was the issue. I was surprised so I went to pick up my car, he said he was so sorry and was not responsible for me taking my car. When I turned on the car, the check engine light was on and it was shaking. It died on me and there was smoke under the hood. I had to have it towed again, but this time to another mechanic. The mechanic replaced 2 ignition coils, valve cover, wires, 2-O2 sensors, struts, 2 motor mounts, and a remanufactured ECU. The old computer was not recognizing the new O2 sensors. It took maybe 3 weeks for me to get my car back due to the holidays. I have spent so much on the car. Then this past Sunday the car started shaking again and the check engine light went on. I could smell like burnt gasoline from the exhaust. I had to have the car towed. Yesterday the mechanic replaced the other 4 ignition coils. He also added a ground from the battery to the ignition coils. Is this safe? Two of the coils had started to melt and the other 2 were bulging. I had bought the 1st two that had melted at Autozone in July 2021. What can cause an ignition coil to melt and cause a fire? I picked up my car today and it drove fine. The only thing I noticed is that when I set the time, the numbers were moving slowly. Like when the car has been out in below zero weather. It seemed odd to me. Even after driving for 15 minutes, the numbers on the radio changed slowly. Is this normal? Did the battery get weak with the added ground? What should I keep my on? I don't know if I should take it to the dealer for a full inspection. All of these issues seem electrical. I cannot afford to buy a new car. Also, back in Nov. 2022, Goodyear steam cleaned the engine to check for a leak. Do you think they did something wrong to cause these issues? For sure they did something wrong with my car when I took it to them in Dec. after replacing alternator. It just doesn't make sense. What steps should I take? What would you do in my situation? I would really appreciate all your advice. Thank you very much

 

Pressure washing the engine bay to find a leak is fairly standard and likely would not have caused any issues, it's more older cars with distributors that had issues after engine bay washing. Adding additional grounds affects nothing, you can add 50 of them from your battery negative to the block, strut tower, whatever. The fact that they grounded to the coil is the weird part, does each coilpack have it's own individual ground? Honestly to me it seems like there was alot of guesswork and random fixes because throwing in a reman ECU randomly is a bit sloppy diagnostic work.

Crappy coilpacks can fail and melt and its usually recommended to suck up the price of OEM ones, but my opinion is don't touch the car anymore and either take it to the dealership (which would be $$$...) or someone that for sure knows what they're doing to get all of the hacked in grounds undone and to get the thing properly diagnosed IE checking voltages at the coilpack connectors propertly, Ohming out the coils, etc

 

Long story short. Your ground wires need to be replaced. I had the SAME EXACT CONDITION with my 04 2 yrs ago. Once I replaced my grounds that stopped that issue right in its tracks, and do your best to not drive with the misfire as you can clog your cats and possibly do engine damage due to the extreme vibrations.