Wow where do I begin…? I have had this 1997 Nissan Altima for the past 7 years. I budget $1200.00 a year for maintenance and repairs because let's be realistic it’s now an 11 year old car!! A month or so ago it started running rough in the mornings; but would smooth out after a few minutes of driving… a few weeks ago it started stalling out when I put in reverse to get out of my parking spot in the morning and again when I would restart it and go forward! … Again it would smooth out in a few minutes. And then it happened…
Without warning I was waiting at a traffic light and when I pushed the gas to go…BAM it died!!!! The person behind me hit me and pushed me out into traffic!!! WTF!!!!! Thankfully I was not hurt and neither were they. (Interesting side note the person who hit me was my 26 year old son, Stephen who was home on leave from the Navy.) That was Sunday, August 19th.
On Monday I took it to my mechanic who said that it did not have any codes when he checked and he was unable to duplicate the symptoms I was reporting. Of course not it had smoothed out after warm up! I limped thru the next day only to return it to the mechanic and asked him to keep it for a couple of days so that he would have the benefit of the cold starts and running it before it inevitably “fixed” itself!! He had the car, the car f''d up but said that since there were no codes he diagnosed it as possibly bad gas or a mass air flow sensor… ok how much? $8 for the Sea Foam or $500 for the sensor… Well I picked the Sea Foam… that didn’t work…
The next day I broke down and found the sensor at O’Reilley’s for $294 including the core. My mechanic agreed to put the part on for me for $40… (I am after all a woman who pays good money for manicures and I didn’t want to break a nail!!) Hopeful I went over to his shop on my lunch break with the sensor and then back to work… Wow my car was going to ok…or so I thought.
After work I got in the car and placed it in reverse where it immediately DIED!!! I cranked it again and put in drive…. DIED!!! I called my best friend Ray and asked him if he had a few hours to spend and I went to his house. … I fixed my 1997 Nissan Altima that night… I bought a 2007 Toyota Corolla LE!!!!
Now the rest of the story… My friend Ray is on disability…I had promised him that when I was ready for a car he would get mine… after all it would be worth more to him than it would be for me as a trade-in Ray has been working with this car for the past 2 weeks and says the car shakes and stalls, spits and sputters for 30 to 45 minutes until it is warmed up. Several mechanics have made several diagnoses’s. He has replaced a fuel pump and been told to use propane gas to troubleshoot the intake manifold gasket. He was told that there was a flaw in the manifold that caused slow leaking and is very common amongst Altima’s ranging into the late 90’s and early 20000’s. So we have racked up a mass air floe sensor($244), and a fuel pump($140)…
You know… when you are doing “exploratory surgery” on your car things can get really expensive really fast… Apparently the gasket repair is about a 10-shop-hour job and a $50 part!!! You can expect to spend between $400 to $700 for the labor alone!!!! So he is currently looking for friends who can assist with the repair… I will keep you posted following the conclusion.
Wow where do I begin…? I have had this 1997 Nissan Altima for the past 7 years. I budget $1200.00 a year for maintenance and repairs because let's be realistic it’s now an 11 year old car!! A month or so ago it started running rough in the mornings; but would smooth out after a few minutes of driving… a few weeks ago it started stalling out when I put in reverse to get out of my parking spot in the morning and again when I would restart it and go forward! … Again it would smooth out in a few minutes. And then it happened…
Without warning I was waiting at a traffic light and when I pushed the gas to go…BAM it died!!!! The person behind me hit me and pushed me out into traffic!!! WTF!!!!! Thankfully I was not hurt and neither were they. (Interesting side note the person who hit me was my 26 year old son, Stephen who was home on leave from the Navy.) That was Sunday, August 19th.
On Monday I took it to my mechanic who said that it did not have any codes when he checked and he was unable to duplicate the symptoms I was reporting. Of course not it had smoothed out after warm up! I limped thru the next day only to return it to the mechanic and asked him to keep it for a couple of days so that he would have the benefit of the cold starts and running it before it inevitably “fixed” itself!! He had the car, the car f''d up but said that since there were no codes he diagnosed it as possibly bad gas or a mass air flow sensor… ok how much? $8 for the Sea Foam or $500 for the sensor… Well I picked the Sea Foam… that didn’t work…
The next day I broke down and found the sensor at O’Reilley’s for $294 including the core. My mechanic agreed to put the part on for me for $40… (I am after all a woman who pays good money for manicures and I didn’t want to break a nail!!) Hopeful I went over to his shop on my lunch break with the sensor and then back to work… Wow my car was going to ok…or so I thought.
After work I got in the car and placed it in reverse where it immediately DIED!!! I cranked it again and put in drive…. DIED!!! I called my best friend Ray and asked him if he had a few hours to spend and I went to his house. … I fixed my 1997 Nissan Altima that night… I bought a 2007 Toyota Corolla LE!!!!
Now the rest of the story… My friend Ray is on disability…I had promised him that when I was ready for a car he would get mine… after all it would be worth more to him than it would be for me as a trade-in Ray has been working with this car for the past 2 weeks and says the car shakes and stalls, spits and sputters for 30 to 45 minutes until it is warmed up. Several mechanics have made several diagnoses’s. He has replaced a fuel pump and been told to use propane gas to troubleshoot the intake manifold gasket. He was told that there was a flaw in the manifold that caused slow leaking and is very common amongst Altima’s ranging into the late 90’s and early 20000’s. So we have racked up a mass air floe sensor($244), and a fuel pump($140)…
You know… when you are doing “exploratory surgery” on your car things can get really expensive really fast… Apparently the gasket repair is about a 10-shop-hour job and a $50 part!!! You can expect to spend between $400 to $700 for the labor alone!!!! So he is currently looking for friends who can assist with the repair… I will keep you posted following the conclusion.
- wendy251, Mobile, AL, US