My wife’s 2007 Nissan Altima recently started to exhibit a strange symptom. For no apparent reason, the gas pedal suddenly had no effect. The engine remains running but adding gas, even stomping the pedal to the floorboard has no effect. The RPMs remain at idle and the vehicle comes slowly to a complete stop, which is horrifying on a traffic-choked highway in Dallas, Texas. My wife figured out that, if she turns the car off, then starts it again, the car miraculously seems to function properly again. We have taken the car to the Nissan dealership where they first replaced the throttle chamber assembly ($1,1013.91). This had no effect and the second visit; they replaced the ACC/PEDAL (not sure what that is exactly, but it cost $161.62). Again, no effect. The third time, they replaced the throttle position sensor and the engine control module at no cost, certainly as a result of our visible and verbal frustration. Guess what? Same problem yesterday. Any suggestion or recommendation would be greatly appreciated. Out of exasperation, I performed the simplest of Google searches (Nissan Altima won’t accelerate) and I found link after link to sites and blogs about this very issue. It seems that the cvt transmission has something to do with it. Why wasn’t this checked out by the dealership? How should I handle this situation? Thank you for your time. Michael
From your Owner’s Manual:
If the vehicle is stuck in mud or snow, the TCS reduces the engine output to reduce wheel spin.
The engine speed will be reduced even if the accelerator is depressed to the floor. If maximum engine power is needed to free a stuck vehicle, turn the TCS off.
A long shot, but maybe the TCS system is malfunctioning.
When I had a similar problem it wasn’t intermittent so I don’t know how it might be your fix…but at least the circuit, wires, or plugs related to the mass air flow sensor should be checked.
in my case the air flow sensor was not getting air movement through it because of the cold air inlet hose being off after the sensor and before the throttle body. hence the air flow data could not change so the throttle response stayed at idle untill I put the hose back on…problem fixed.