2006 Nissan Murano randomly loses power

Maintenance/Repairs
,
1

Hi all,

I have a 2006 Nissan Murano with 122,000 miles on it. It’s been a good car, but recently it has had a few episodes of losing power. Here’s an example:

I had been driving the car here and there all day, and in the afternoon I swung by my mom’s house to pick her up. When she got in the car (I had just been idling while waiting), I went to make a U-turn and the car outright died. I started it right back up and was able to drive to the end of the block before it lost power. It didn’t die this time – the engine was still on – but all my electrical components went out – radio, dashboard lights, AC – and I couldn’t get it to go more than 20 mph. That was flooring it. It wasn’t giving me a high-pitched whine, just a low hum like it was trying really hard to go but couldn’t. I turned it around and barely made it back up the hill to my mom’s to park it. It just had no get-up-and-go. An hour or so later my dad came home and checked it out and of course it was fine. Started right up, drove fine.

This has happened twice since, both times I was driving on the freeway when I felt the loss of get-up-and-go and saw the electrical components go out. These times it only lasted maybe 10 seconds, after which it just came back to life in the middle of driving and drove fine the rest of the day.

It makes me think there must be some sort of loose connection somewhere? I’m frustrated by the issue because it’s not repeatable. So when I took it to my mechanic, they said they couldn’t find anything wrong. They hooked it up to a code reader and nothing came up, and they drove it around and around and it was fine. The idea that it could maybe strand me on the side of the road (I drive my kids around all day) scares me, so I’ve swapped cars with my husband for the time being. But I want my Murano back! Any ideas what could be wrong??

Thanks in advance for your help!

2

Sounds like an intermittent electrical gremlin. These are a pain since they are not consistent and seem to go on vacation when you bring your car in to the repairman. Good luck!

3

These are odd symptoms. If it weren’t for the electrical symptoms, I’d guess it was something in the fuel injection or emission system failing. I’m assuming your car cranks and runs fine otherwise. I guess the first thing to do is have your mechanic check the battery to verify it is good, then remove the battery cables, clean the connectors and posts, and replace and re-tighten. You might ask yoru mechanic to put it on the ignition testing machine if they have one to see if they can see anything wrong with the spark. Other than that, it seems like the only thing you can do is wait for it to develop more consistent symtoms.

4

Besides the above comments, also check the other sides of the cables coming from the battery. The black one is tied to the frame and from there is tied to the engine.
Unbolt that side and clean both the contact and the contact area on the frame with some sandpaper before bolting it back.
There’s another cable that goes to the underhood fuse box and the starter. You could do the same with that one, except that it is probably harder to get to and is more protected than the black cable. Wait doing that one if cleaning the black one did not make a difference.