1-800-647-7261 ext 457338 name Liezel (Lee- ZeLL)
3:18pm duration 15:16
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I explained the problem, 2 years of service engine lights, change coils, etc. with regular local mechanic. Car stalled out thursday 3-24 replaced crank position sensor and both catalytic converters.
Car runs rough - smoke billowing out of exhaust
Car hesitates then alternately lurches forward
Piston rings gone
Engine using oil
Local mechanic says I need new engine. She instructs me to take it to dealer for diagnosis and gives me file # 713-XXXX.
She then tells me to call back when i have a diagnosis from the dealer.
She's very friendly.
I ask if the rumors online about nissan not helping people with this problem are true, because my car doesn't fall within the warranty, but has had all the same problems. I explained that I've read on message boards that they say that Nissan doesn't get back to you, etc. I told her I love nissans and would be so sad if this was my last experience with them. She said they would be sad too and that they do try to help people.
She also told me that she wasn't sure if Nissan would pay for the diagnosis because car is not in warranty.
I told her I would get the car diagnosed at the dealer and would get back to her once I had a diagnoses.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
2011-03-24 18:23
My family LOVES NISSANS. We have owned several of them : 1992 Nissan Sentra, 1998 Nissan Sentra, 2003 Nissan Maxima SE, and a 2003 Nissan Altima. In fact, we've encouraged lots of people to purchase Nissans. We could not imagine why people chose to drive less pretty, less zippy, less FUN cars than Nissans. We were even a bit snobbish about our Nissans. Scoffing to each other, "Why on earth would you buy a Toyota Camry? They are **so** boring. So... vanilla. So, grown up and old fart-ish."
When my 1998 Nissan Sentra was totaled due to a rear end collision, I told EVERYONE that I was certain that it saved us from serious injury. I was hit from behind by a young girl who was not paying attention. I was stopped at a cross walk to let a pedestrian cross. The impact was around 35 - 40 mph. Enough to make the other driver's airbags deploy. Enough to bend the frame of my car so much that the passenger seat in my car couldn't be moved forward or backward. It popped the trunk open, and prevented the passenger's side doors from being closed properly. It buckled the area between the passenger side rear door and the trunk. Enough to ruin things in the trunk. Enough to imprint her license plate number into my bumper. But we were okay. We were fine. We were sore, and had bruises, but we were fine. I immediately went out and purchased my 2003 Altima. I never even test drove anything else.
From day 1, I put synthetic oil in the Altima. (I purchased it pre-owned in October of 2006.) We had the oil changed regularly. Everything was fine for the first 2 years or so that I owned it...
Below is my poor car on March 24, 2011 6:23pm. It stalled suddenly in the middle of a busy intersection. I was taking off from the light when the car suddenly stopped running. The person behind me nearly hit me because the car just stopped with no warning.
When I attempted to restart the engine, a cloud of exhaust came into the car and the smell was terrible. I had to have the car (seen below) towed by AAA to the local mechanic. The police had to be called because I was in the middle of a major intersection.
When my 1998 Nissan Sentra was totaled due to a rear end collision, I told EVERYONE that I was certain that it saved us from serious injury. I was hit from behind by a young girl who was not paying attention. I was stopped at a cross walk to let a pedestrian cross. The impact was around 35 - 40 mph. Enough to make the other driver's airbags deploy. Enough to bend the frame of my car so much that the passenger seat in my car couldn't be moved forward or backward. It popped the trunk open, and prevented the passenger's side doors from being closed properly. It buckled the area between the passenger side rear door and the trunk. Enough to ruin things in the trunk. Enough to imprint her license plate number into my bumper. But we were okay. We were fine. We were sore, and had bruises, but we were fine. I immediately went out and purchased my 2003 Altima. I never even test drove anything else.
From day 1, I put synthetic oil in the Altima. (I purchased it pre-owned in October of 2006.) We had the oil changed regularly. Everything was fine for the first 2 years or so that I owned it...
Below is my poor car on March 24, 2011 6:23pm. It stalled suddenly in the middle of a busy intersection. I was taking off from the light when the car suddenly stopped running. The person behind me nearly hit me because the car just stopped with no warning.
When I attempted to restart the engine, a cloud of exhaust came into the car and the smell was terrible. I had to have the car (seen below) towed by AAA to the local mechanic. The police had to be called because I was in the middle of a major intersection.
Here are some links detailing simliar experiences to what I have had with this car:
Search by year, make, and model here: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/complaints/results.cfm
For approximately two years (starting somewhere around 65k miles), this car has had a service engine light that would go on and off. Sometimes, the light would conincide with the car lurching while traveling on the highway. Sometimes, when this lurching occurred, the light would go off if it was already on. Sometimes the light would blink. Sometimes not. Sometimes the light would be on for weeks on end. Sometimes just for a few minutes. The codes that we had read on the the car were never the same. We got codes for coils, cylinder misfires (for different cylinders), we got codes for short circuits, we got codes for crank position sensors. So, we kept trying different things to fix it. Nothing really ever seemed to make it better or worse.
We had the throttle body cleaned.
We replaced coils.
We tried moving coils around to see if the problem stopped. (It never stopped.)
We replaced spark plugs.
We called about the crank position sensor recall and were told that despite the fact that the car fell into the range VIN wise, that the car didn't qualify for the recall.
All the while, the car just acted a bit funny and we continued to try to figure out the problem through trial and error.
My car passed inspection with an emissions check in January of this year. Somehow though, something finally "let go" and the car DIED two months later.
We replaced the crank position sensor and the car started! Though, at this point it was obvious that something was now terribly wrong with the exhaust. My local mechanic found that the pre-catalytic converter was totally broken up inside and that the catalytic converter behind that one was clogged. So, we replaced both of the converters. I picked the car up and it sounded a little different, but I thought that perhaps the converters having had a problem before had made the engine sound funny. So, I drove the car 20 miles to Providence and back. It seemed okay, no service engine light, no lurching. Life seemed good.
I should also state that my mechanic told me 2 years ago, when I first started having problems with the car that I should sell it. He had several other customers that had these vehicles and that they were consuming large amounts of oil, stalling suddenly, etc. It has since been proven that the faulty design of the exhaust (the pre-cat's location being so close to the engine) causes the pre-cat to break up and blow back into the engine.
Here is some relevant text from the recall:
"In addition, for 2002-2003 model year Altimas and 2002-2004 model year Sentras, there is a possibility that certain engine operating conditions may cause damage to the pre-catalyst. Material from inside a damaged pre-catalyst could enter the engine and result in increased oil consumption. If the engine oil level is not checked on a periodic basis and drops below the low level, and the driver continues to operate the vehicle ignoring noticeable engine noise, engine damage may occur which could result in a fire."
The next day, I drove the vehicle to work. The car started LURCHING AND SHUDDERING just as I was about to exit from the highway. The car continued to shudder and have very poor acceleration. As I pulled into the parking lot at work, the car stalled into its parking spot. I tried to restart the car and blue smoke BILLOWED out of the back of the car. I called my mechanic and he instructed me to bring it in again that night. I did manage to get the car back home to the mechanic that evening. However, I took back roads home since I wasn't sure if the car would stall and I didn't' want that to happen on the freeway at rush hour.
The car stalled every time I took my foot off of the gas. It was boggy and and did not accelerate well at all.
When I spoke to the mechanic the next day, he told me that the engine was blown, the piston rings were destroyed and the car was consuming massive amounts of oil. I noticed that I had used a 1/2 tank of gas and 2 quarts of oil in the 100 miles that I drove the car since the repair.
Through all of this, I decided to contact Nissan. This blog will be a chronicle of my experience with Nissan of North America and my attempt at making them replace my engine and to reimburse me for the cost to replace the Crank Position Sensor and the 2 catalytic converters. Stay tuned...
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