somethings wrong with my car, and no one knows what it is
Asked by beatles4 May 02, 2008 at 08:51 PM about the 1990 Nissan Maxima
Question type: Maintenance & Repair
the mechanic says when he runs the diagnostics that it comes up with nothing wrong...diagnostics usually track electrical problems...
the car seems to be starving itself of fuel...it runs better when the car is cold, and sometimes when i take turns really fast.
things replaced:
fuel filter, plugs, plug wires, distributer cap, rotor button, oil, fuel pump regulator, all injectors, catalytic converter, battery, starter, alternator, and the tank has been siphoned.
the car still doesn't work properly...
symptoms:
sputtering, hick upping, idleing out, loss of almost all acceleration, loss of power.
Most of the time one of these symptoms is happening, and its lightly. But, sometimes it gets worse, to where i can't accelerate. It feels like one of the wires is off a plug, but thats not it....its a stick, and it kind of feels like (when it gets really bad) when your in a manual car with a new driver trying to learn how to use the stick for the first time...
Can anyone give advice to what this is? and how i can fix it? or what i can fix?
thanks
9 Answers
i forgot to say that its a 1990 Nissan Maxima, Manual, 6 cylinder, front wheel drive, 190000 miles
sounds like a partly bad throttle position sensor, it will cause those those symptoms and not nessiciarly produce a fault code espically on an obd1 car. check its output signal in resistance and compare it to the repair manual
It could be a combination of things. When was the last time you checked/cleaned out the IAC? And when was the last time you replaced the clutch
check the a/c compressor,make sure it's not hanging on...
check with the dealer and see if the computer needs to be flashed, there are new updates for that model... other wise sell it and let someone else deal with it...
possible bad mass air flow sensor one of many problem know with these cars to go bad. if its not metering the air then u get no fuel.
My 85 lost the mass air flow sensor/meter (MAF). To check it, un-plug the sensor and start the car. If it runs and revs fine, aside from acting like it has a rev limiter, that's probably the problem. Then plug it back in. It will probably die. Bad part. PS-when the MAF is unplugged, the ECU cuts off fuel when revved, to prevent damage.
That's funny, because my Maxima had that same problem, where i would go to accelerate and it would stumble/stutter/etc...except I didn't quite do everything you did. So far I've replaced only the air filter, spark plugs, fuel filter and changed out some cracked vacuum tubes. I was thinking at first that it was a problem with the distributor, they have been known to draw oil up into themselves and cause some sticking, I dismantled mine and cleaned it out a bit; after all of that, hadn't had a problem since. -Jefferson
