1995 Nissan Maxima stalling upon stopping

[wayne1937]

My daughter's car, a 95 Nissan Maxima is stalling at times when she is slowing down or stopping. We have put a new air filter and a new fuel filter on the car but this has not helped. The MIL is on and the OBD11 scanner indicates a right hand upstream and a downstream 02 sensor circuit fault. Does this mean that the two components are bad or could it be something else within the emissions control causing the problem? I do not want to put these items in unless they are bad due to the high cost. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks

[nistec]

try unplugging them and driving for a few days if it does not stall you know it is the problem.

[wayne1937]

nistec, thank you for your response. I have already ordered the three O2 sensors. The car has around 95,000 mile on it so I thought I would just go ahead and get them. According to what I have read they should either be checked or replaced around 60,000 miles. Our local Nissan Dealership wanted $140. for each of the 02 sensors but I got them online for less than half that price. I am paying $198.00 for all three OE sensors with the online company where I would have paid over $400.00 if I had bought them at Nissan. I will put them in and if this does not take care of it I will check some of the other emission control parts such at the EGR valve, IAC valve and etc. Thanks again for your suggestion.

[wayne1937]

This post has been a long time coming but I want to provide an update on what solved the problem on this car. I put all three 02 sensors in. This took care of the CEL. She has driven it around two weeks now and the light is still off. I had cleared the sensor codes right after installing the sensors so apparently the 02 sensors were bad and this took care of the CEL problem. However, this did not cure the stalling & surging problems she was having. Today, Saturday, 090107, I cleaned the throttle body and installed a new MAF sensor to the tune of $403.00. My daughter and I took the car for a long ride in town, stop and go driving, and on the main highway for more speed. The engine did not stop or surge any doing our stop and go in town and it ran great out on the open road. My advice would be if you have stalling problems, surging and other driveability problems you might want to consider cleaning the throttle boy and replacing the MAF (Mass Air Flow sensor). My daughter said that the car ran better now than it has for a long time. I certainly hope this will help some of you folks who may be having this same type of problem.

[vpnavy]

Thanks for taking the time to update us. Your solution might help others.

[wayne1937]

You are welcome vpnavy. I am sorry it took me this long to find the problem with the car. Anyway, I certainly hope that this will help some one else solve their problem.

[Ted Johnson]

Wayne, you are right about it - the MAF sensor was faulty.

it happened to my car (max 95) about 6 months ago...sorry just find this website today. I was not sure how many times my car was stalled and died when I stopped at traffic lights. Finally I found out MAF sensor did not work correctly, and I fixed my MAF sensor by re-soldered connections between the sensor circuit board and the prongs/pins of the connector, and it saved me $400.

Here is what I did to fix my MAF sensor. Inside the MAF sensor , the other ends of Prongs/pins of the MAF sensor connector were connected and soldered to the MAF sensor circuit board. The cold solders were there...if you worked on electronic stuff you know what I mean. When there is a cold solder on a circuit board, it will prevent a flow of electronic signal and it causes intermittent problems.

To access inside MAF sensor, remove the top cover...it was shield by silicon...from there the sensor circuit can be seen.

REMEMBER WHEN TO WORK ON ELECTRONIC STUFF AND NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ESD (ELECTRONIC STATIC DISCHARGE)...MAKE SURE TO GROUND YOURSELF BEFORE TOUCHING ANY ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT BOARD. The best way to do is to touch to car body (metal - or ground signal) to discharge any static charge before holding the board, and better to hold on the edges of the board.

[wayne1937]

Thanks Ted. Yes! you arrived a little late on the scene. I ordered the MAF from a Nissan Dealer out in Texas and received it last night. I put it on today. I did not realize that these parts could be repaired or I may have tempted to do it. I do have some electronic knowledge from a school I had gone to years ago. I made a total of three transistor AM radios from kits, lots of soldering, so I do have some experience in soldering. Thanks again and hopefully your information will save some one else a lot of money.

[Ted Johnson]

it's good to know you have deep background in electronic...my car runs better after i fixed the MAF. There was also no more difficult starting on every morining since.

[wayne1937]

Thanks for the info. Ted. I am glad you have it fixed. It's amazing how such a small electronic component can cause these types of problems. My daughter was out today and she said her car was running better than it has for a long time. The MAF had probably been dying over a period of time.

[davedat]

Ditto to what Ted say's. I did the same fix on our 95. The pins for the connector are spot welded to tabs which are soldered to the PCB. I soldered the weld spots (since DIY welding there would be impractical). My symptom came up after changing the air filter and cleaning the air box componants (no good deed goes unpunished!). Mine would run good for about 10 miles or so, just long enough to strand my daughter somewhere. Then if you tried to drive it, it would jerk violently and often stall, but may be willing to idle smothly. Once cooled off it would repeat this. I guess it depends which of the connections is broken and how much contact it makes for just how and what symptom comes up (maybe what trans effects the symptom...mine is a 5 speed). Sorry for your trouble and expense wayne.

[jayhud007]

sorry guys. . .1995 maxima. had it for six years in december and i love it.

replaced starter three times in last five years. stalls at stop lights every now and then. the shop wants to put another starter on, but i know that's not the problem. i've been reading about the mass air flow sensor here. you guys think that sounds about right?

[wayne1937]

Jayhud, check out the below website. It is a video on how to clean your MAF sensor and see if cleaning the MAF sensor will help you. It certainly sounds like a MAF sensor problem to me. Do you get some stumbling while taking off? I believe my daughter did get some cutting out while accelerating also. With close to a 100,000 on the car I figured it would not hurt to buy a new Maf so we were lucky and it turned out it took care of the problem. Good luck.

How to clean your MAF -- mass aior flow sensor. with sprayable Mass Air Flow Sensor cleaner. Hi-quality version - Video

[asiachem]

I fixed my 93 Max stall by doing the same thing- weld every spots I can reach. It worked very well. Just remember to seal MAF again using black silicon. loosing weld spots is a common Nissan's problem.

[frankweir]

Had the same problem with my 97 maxima. Look on EBay for the part...I found a rebuilt MAF for the maxima for $120....I heard nissan wants $488, other suppliers around $350. It's very easy to install it yourself...

[jayhud007]

the MAF was pretty clean when I took it out so I didn't do anything to it. We put it on the computer and it came up with the crankshaft sensor error code. So we replaced that and I haven't had any problems since Friday. Hopefully, that took care of the problem. I also received the knock error, but we were thinking that was caused by the original problem.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Very helpful.

JayHud

[frankweir]

Jayhud....be careful with the MAF...mine was spotless but BAD. I sprayed it with CRC MAF cleaner anyway but it did NO good. I still had to replace it. It can look perfectly clean but still be defective...I'm no mechanic so I don't know if I could re-solder the circuit board and prongs as mentioned above. IF your erratic idling and stalling continues, keep considering the MAF...by far, I see LOTS MORE people with mid-90s maximas having to replace the MAF for these problems than crankshaft sensor errors. Yours is the first time I have read of someone replacing a crankshaft sensor. It's almost always the MAF, clean or not, that seems to cause this behavior. I DEFER TO THE NISSAN EXPERTS THO!! And consider buying the MAF as a rebuilt unit on Ebay and installing it yourself. It is easy to do, its warranted for 90 days, and there is even a video that shows you how, as posted above. You will save several hundred dollars. Heck, it isn't a lot more complicated than changing the air filter itself!

frank

[wayne1937]

jayhud, I would very much consider what Frank has said. I find it hard to believe that the crank shaft sensor would do this. If your problem comes back you can, and probably should replace the MAF sensor. Good Luck.

[frankweir]

I just started a new thread but wanted to mention this here since we have had a dialog going on stalling behavior. This is very odd and at first I assumed it was yet another sensor of some sort causing my continuing stalling even after replacing my MAF. Please have a read....

I have a 97 Maxima that stalls when turning a corner and not accelerating. I ALSO had the MAF situation where it would hesitate and jerk while driving. I replaced the MAF which solved that problem. But the stalling on turning has continued. TODAY, I made a startling discovery. While parked, with the trans in park, I turned the steering wheel completely from left to right while standing still. Amazingly, the engine RPM would drop dramatically as I turned the wheel and finally the engine stalled as I was turning the wheel! Anyone have an idea about this?? I wonder if a hose is lose somewhere and the axles turning is pulling something some way or another. Let me know if you've encountered this or if you have a thought....

Many thanks for a great forum and resource here!

frank weir

[jayhud007]

I should really listen to you guys. I was driving through the Wendy's drive thru yesterday and my baby Maximas stalled again. I'm gonna replace that MAF sensor this weekend. Hopefully, that will take care of it.

Quick question, when your cars have stalled, in order to re-start it do you have to give it gas? That's what happens with my Maximas. It's almost like it isn't getting gas. Can anyone make sense of this?