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Sedans Nissan Altima Nissan Altima Engine Failures
500 messages, Last post on Nov 29, 2009 at 8:42 PM
You are in the Nissan Altima Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: czander (Jan 06, 2008 9:56 am)
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Replying to: laura19 (Jan 25, 2008 10:03 am) You say its an 02, which would make it just barely 6 yrs old. Is it still under warranty? even if you bought it used, most of the extended warranties transfer to the next owner. anyhow, find yourself a good mechanic who knows how to properly diagnose a car.
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Replying to: jd10013 (Jan 25, 2008 6:31 pm)  Has anyone else had this same prob? Help!!!
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Replying to: laura19 (Jan 26, 2008 8:16 am) my advice would be to take it to a garage that specialized in foreign cars, or another nissan dealership. It's most likely something in the electrical system, and electrical problems are a pain in the arse to track down. |
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Replying to: jd10013 (Jan 26, 2008 2:25 pm)
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Replying to: laura19 (Jan 27, 2008 7:13 am)
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Replying to: jd10013 (Jan 27, 2008 9:59 am) |
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Replying to: laura19 (Jan 25, 2008 10:03 am) I have read your original messege #174 and all the following messeges to date, 175 through 180. I have not checked in here for a couple of days. I am a semi-retired mechanic, and I just just did major rebuild work on one of these same 2002 Altima 2.5L 4 cylinder inline engines in December 2007, my daughters car with 100,903 miles on it. It had all the typical problems that we are seeing in some of these cars today, such as problems with the catalytic converter failing and/or plugging, begining to use more oil problem and leaking head gasket problem. I fixed all those problems and now her car is running perfect every day. I am familiar with this engine and all the sensors. Looking at the original information and the following comments, I see a lot of holes and/or gaps in the information about your car. The reason that the several mechanics have not been able to fix your car is because something is being overlooked. We need to go back to the basics and start from the begining and work our way through the problem to find the solution. I will be able to help you by steering you in the right direction if you can just give me the correct information that I need, and fill in the blanks or gaps. The better information that you can give me, the better I can help you. First, you need to be familiar with what is going on with this engine, the problems that are showing up and why the problems are happening. It may sound far feched, but your engines problems are likely related to these problems that have been discussed on this forum so far. If you have not done so, please read all the messeges in this forum, or at least messege #75 on to this one. Here are a few questions to get started. Please gather up all the information that you can and reply back with your answers. I'll check back in a couple of days. 1. What were your original complaints that led you to think anything was wrong with your car? Having to add oil frequently? Engine misfiring or running bad? Subsequent compaints or anything else? Is the current milage about 116,000 miles? 2. You stated that "I have had unexplained oil consumption". But no further comment has been made about that. Since the oil consumption is "unexplained", I would assume that there is not an oil leak anywhere on the engine after the valve cover gasket was replaced. How much engine oil is the engine losing in 1000 miles? How often do you check the engine oil level? How often are you having to add engine oil, and how much? If you don't know exactly, try to give an estimate. 3. Then you brought up the problem of misfiring on cylinder #3. Was misfiring an original complaint? How was the misfiring determined to be on cylinder #3? Did the technician read the DTC's (Diagnositic Trouble Codes) with a Scanner? Find out what codes were scanned and please report them here. Tell me all you can about this misfire. Does it happen all the time or just some of the time? Does it miss when you first start the engine after it has been sitting for a long while or over night? Does the miss go away after you drive it a short distance? 4. Have you had a noticable loss of power from the engine, and if so, did it seem to ocurr suddenly or over a period of time? Have you had any known problems yet with the Pre-Catalyic Converter or the Catalytic Converter, or had any trouble codes pertaining to them? 5. You were also told "no water coming through". I would assume that is referring to any coolant leaking inside the engine. Has the engine ever run hot? Have you had any instance where the engine got hot because a hose blew or the radiator blew? Where does your temperature gauge normally register with normal driving down the road (Normal is in about the middle of the temperature gauge). Does the temperature gauge vary very much once it is warmed up? Does it read at about the same when sitting at a light with the motor idleing? Check the coolant tank reservior tank level often when the engine is cold. Does the level of coolant in the coolant tank reservior stay the same level, or does it go low. Do you have to add any coolant to the coolant reservior? It is normal for the coolant level to be lower when the engine is cold and higher when the engine is at operating temperature. Your mechanic should have a handheld scanner that is capable of monitor mode, being able to see and read the functions that the computer monitors, such as coolant temperature, ignition timing, intake air temperature, intake air volume, fuel trims, oxygen sensors, etc. He can have this connected to the car and observe these things while the car is stationary or while driving the car. With the car stationary and engine idleing, the coolant temperture should rise up to about 200 to 203 degrees, then both the electric fans behind the radiator should come on, then the temperature should drop down to about 188 degrees and then the fans turn off. This cycle continues, but when moving down the road, the fans may not need to come on because of the wind blowing through the radiator. 6. You said "Was told that the piston is fine, no scoring, no water coming through. Compression is fine". How were these things determined? If the compression was tested on the cylinders, it is important to know what those are. My daugthers 2002 Altima 2.5 had 190 pounds of compression in each cylinder, which is very good. This indicated that the pistion rings were good and holding compression well. Also good is the fact that the compressions on all 4 cylinders was the same. The maximum compression variation between cylinders is 20%, which in this case would be about 38 pounds, so the acceptable range of compressions should be about 152 to 190, the closer the better. Howerver, compressions alone are not the sole indicator of engine condition, all factors must be considered together to arrive at the proper conclusion. In the case of my daughters Altima, even though the compressions were good, the head gasket was still bad, because it had a very small leak in the head gasket that allowed coolant to flow into one cylinder when the engine was shut off. When it was restarted from a cold start, the coolant in the cylinder caused that cylinder to miss for about a minute until the spark plug dried off and started firing, then it ran fine. The problem was found because the coolant reservior ran low and combustion gas was found in the radiator. 7. Referring to the scoring, how was it determined that there was no scoring. The only sure way to tell is by taking the engine apart, removing the cylinder head and examining the cylinders. Other that that, it may have been assumed that the pistons were ok and that there was no scoring due to good compression readings. Continued on next messege
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Replying to: electricdesign (Jan 27, 2008 9:10 pm) 8. Since you have taken your Altima to the dealer to be checked, I would assume that they put in the Recall with the updated Crankshaft Position Sensor and the updated Camshaft position sensor. Is this correct? I would also assume that they did the Recall for the Intake Manifold Power VaIve, where the upper intake manifold is removed and the power valve screws are checked and tightened. I would check and verify if these recalls been done, and let us know. 9. You said "Then my Piston # 3 was misfiring. I had my #3 coilpack and plugs replaced. Piston #3 kept misfiring. Was told by another mechanic that I should have had a Nissan coil pack and platinum plugs put in. I did that. Piston #3 still misfiring". What was the condition of the original spark plug on #3 cylinder? Fouled? Dirty? Wet? Oil? Coolant? Were all 4 spark plugs replaced? If it is still missing, all 4 spark plugs should be carefully removed and looked at. The condtion of each one should be noted. They should be clean and dry, light tan in color, electrodes not bent, all look the same. That is enough questions for now. Please gather up what you can and let us know what you find out. If you or anyone else would like to see pictures of the 2002 Altima 2.5L engine being taken apart and put back together, I posted links below that can take you to the photos. The site is for photographs of all types, and the basic service is free, pictures can be stored on albums there for free. They only charge if you buy photos from them. If you are not registered, you can simply register to gain acess to viewing the pictures. There are hundreds of photos of taking the engine apart and hundreds of photos putting the engine together. 2007-12-10 2002 Altima eng teardown pictures http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=215829101/a=85874609_85874609/t_- =85874609 2007-12-17 Altima eng rebuild pictures http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=215829106/a=85874609_85874609/t_- =85874609 Good Luck, E.D. in Sunny Florida
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