2004 Nissan Quest - transmission trouble?

derek_graham
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:45:21 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

Earlier this year my wife had a situation where our '04 Nissan Quest wouldn’t “go” in drive. It would barely move along. Press the gas all the way and the engine would not rev and the car would barely go. It was “ok” in low, in that it would go as expected in low. Shut off car and restarted and problem went away.

Several weeks later, same thing happens. This time check engine light comes on. Again, turning off and back on again gets it going normally. Doesn’t happen most times. Seems to turn over a bit longer when starting (still less than a second or two) and problem happens when you shift into drive.

Take it into shop and engine codes correspond to service bulletin that suggests replacing both camshaft position sensors. Aren’t able to repro the transmission problem.

In the meantime, I locate service bulletin for this model year that describes more or less our exact symptoms (transmission starts in limp home mode, off/on cycle returns to normal). Fix is to replace transmission controller.

Talk to two dealers in area who have some vague memory of this problem but its been several years.

My question - are these two things related? Seems weird that the position sensor / check engine light only came on after several occurrences of the transmission problem. And now that I’m driving it, I can tell when its going to start up with the transmission problem by the fact that it cranks a bit longer before starting. And there’s sort of a jump when shifting out of park into drive and back that doesn’t happen normally.

Could the transmission misbehaving cause a falsely reported failure condition in the camshaft sensors or could camshaft sensors cause transmission control to start up in limp home mode?

I was thinking of fixing the camshaft sensors first and seeing if the problems shows up again with the transmission. (probably 10 cases in several weeks.)

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.

8 posts - 4 participants