Hi,
I have Nissan Maxima 1997, yesterday I was not able to start my car and so my mechanic replaced Starter. After replacing starter car is starting but now when I start driving it just starts for few feet’s and stops suddenly. When it stops engine also stops, I can start car again and it again drives and than stop completely. This is happening continuously when I do reverse or fwd driving both. I suspect that this has something to do with replacement of Starter, during replacement my mechanic dismantle few things to reach the starter and I doubt that some part is not loose and not plugged in properly. I never faced this issue in the past.
My mechanic thinks it is some other issue but I don’t want to spend more on this car unless I get an idea how much it is going to cost to fix it.
Can anyone on this forum share there expert views about what the problem could be?
this sounds really hard to diagnose without seeing the car, and getting more info.
did the original problem with not starting involve the car turning the engine over and just not firing up, or did it just click or do nothing when you turned the key?
Sounds like you have burned up one starter, no sense in burning up another one…You car is stalling because it is losing fuel or spark…It’s 17 years old…How many miles on it?? But whatever it is, cranking it until the starter gives up is NOT the solution…
Thanks everyone for your quick reply.
Wesw, with original problem, car was not doing anything, it was just click and nothing. Mechanic did a quick fix before replacing. Quick fix was hitting the Solenoid with a small rode by reaching there. When we hit Solenoid than car started, but now we have new Starter so starting is not a problem. I see you are trying to correlate the issue which is nice :).
Caddman, car has 156 K miles on it.
Yosemite/Knfenimore, so are you suggesting to replace a fuel pump?
All, any idea why this happened after replacing the starter. Is it just a coincidence or while replacing sensor some parts is loose and just need to be tightened.
did you notice if he wiggled your battery terminals? that is always my first thought when I just get a click. you would be surprised at how often a bad connection causes a click, then nothing. even if your lights and radio work, you may not have enough current to turn the starter. often it is under the insulation of the batt. cable too, and easily overlooked. what causes your new problem? I have no idea
I think you need to test things before replacing them.
I would try a second opinion with a mechanic who will test your components before replacing them.
its very easy to wiggle a loose battery terminal to get contact , then reach down and tap the solenoid.
I m not saying that you are being had but a second opinion never hurts.
I would get a definite diagnosis before spending more money on guesses.
by the way, I m no expert, but some of the guys here are. they may have a better idea of the problem.
the conditions you describe sound like two completely different issues to me. coincidence? maybe.
yes insightful, you are right. If I don’t do reverse or drive than engine keeps running. Only when I try to drive/reverse than car stops completely with engine off. Some times i can drive successfully up to 200 feet, some time it just stop as soon as i go from Parking to Drive/Reverse mode.
Harjeet - I suspect you may be right. It’s too co-incidental. He needs to go over the things he dismantled. Putting the car in gear causes the engine to twist on its mounts which could disturb a loose connection. I would try tugging on the wiring of the things he dismantled while the engine is running and see if anything happens.
How is the idle, is it choppy? I would test what tester said and one more thing I would check is, are all your spark plugs firing?
I had this problem with my lincoln continental, dropped two plugs (fouled out) and it would do this. Only way I could get it to go was to rev the engine & put it in gear. Once I started moving, every gear change under load the engine would buck & kick.
The fix after pretty much checking for timing, replacing distributor cap bla bla, was spark plugs. I replaced both wires & spark plugs and it ran fine after that.