Greetings.
I have a faulty fuel injector on cylinder no. 5. My repair shop has given me a quote of $450.00 to repair. I asked if a fuel injector cleaner I can add to my gas tank might help. Was told not to get my hopes up, but it wouldn’t hurt.
Would like to find out if this is worth a try, which product is recommended, and any wisdom on it’s use.
Thank you.
Yes, it might help. Use a can of Techron Fuel Injector Cleaner in the gas tank. To backtrack, there is NO CE (Check Engine) light which says, “Replace the fuel injector”. Tell us the code, if you know it, and tell us the engine performance problems.
So what are the symptoms? Completely dead cylinder, rough idle, smooths out when off-idle, etc.?
An injector can be faulty for any number of reasons that a cleaner will not have an affect on.
I got the impression from my dealer that the cylinder was completely dead. It has a rough idle. It “smooths out” somewhat when moving, but not completely.
There’s a lot of things it could be other than an injector and I don’t know if they’re guessing or not.
JMHO, but whenever a vehicle is having a performance problem the compression should always be checked first. This weeds out a mechanical fault right off the bat and prevents throwing a box full of unneeded parts at a problem.
A faulty spark plug or wire could cause it also. I don’t know how they arrived at the injector diagnosis and maybe they’re correct but any of those things I mentioned can cause the car to exhibit symptoms like this.
In August of '07, the “check engine” codes where: P0400 (was told this indicates an EGR sys. problem) and PO325 (was told this indicates “Knock Sensor, Bank 1”) the codes where reset. I was told if the check engine light comes on again, these areas are the problem. A short time later, the light came on. I took it back to the shop. They felt that as long as I wasn’t experiencing any performance problems, don’t worry about it, as trying to locate the exact problem can be time intensive and expensive. So I let it go, and in January '08, about a week before I took it in for an oil, filter, and lube, it started to rough idle, rough performance, and my miles/gal. has dropped off.
The shop indicated that in addition to the fuel injector ($450.00 quote to repair), I was going to need new struts (getting strut bearing noise when turning steering wheel), $850.00, and some timing chain noise (dealer quote, $1500). They have counseled that I look for a new car.
I’ve worked with this shop off and on for a number of years. They have a good reputation. Still, I’m thinking I should get a second opinion.
Appreciate your help. Sorry for the long-winded story.
I got the impression from my dealer that the cylinder was completely dead. It has a rough idle and is still rough during acceleration/cruising.
awhile back i had the same problems with my maxima same year. got knox sensor replaced it got egr valve replaced it got oxygen sensor and gave up. the mechanic checked it for another problem and said that its the mass airflow sensor being bad would set off all those other sensors and egr valve codes and they werent bad. i realized id had a mass airflow sensor code some up at one point and ignored it. only once tho. my car had had the same problems: died when ideling or not giving enough gas basically below 100 rpms or at stops. replaced the mass airflow sensor and it was fixed. its expensive tho. no other mechanic ever caught it even tho They replaced all the other sesnsors only the mechanic who knew things about intermittent problem diagnostics