car problems.. Keep or fix?

waveydave79

waveydave79

waveydave79

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Joined
4 Feb 2006
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544
Location
nottingham
Hi people,

I need some advise on a Nissan Almera 2005 Petrol 1.5

Over the past 3 months , ive had issues with this car juddering. Basically when going from 1500-2000 revs sometimes the car misfires, its a pretty voilent shake and and major loss of power then instantly picks up again.

Oh and the problem only happens normally after the engine has warmed up.

Have done the following:

approxmitely 6 months ago the car had a major service all plugs, filters changed

1 month ago I fitted a new Mass airflow meter, this seemed to help the problem a lot and then it has come back again.

Ive tried the green redex stuff for cleaning out engines.

I dont have a enough knowledge about this sorta thing to pinpoint the problem, as the problem is intermitant and no engine light comes on I am really at a loss.


After alittle digging i did found the following

http://www.ilexa.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,6610.from1140125174/topicseen.html

Basically it appears the car has a chain, and then slakens off. The thread above states it is around £600+ to get this repaired.

I dont know for certain that it is this, the car has just done 44K, Ive not thrashed it, and its had regular servicing. It was sold to me with 23K on the clock.

I am worried about the problem getting worse, Its been into my local garage and they found 'Nothing wrong'. Im reluctant to pay diagnostics if it is the chain, then I think Im gonna have to part with the car :mad:

The old almeras were fantastic, this after finding out it is part french. Im never buying one again.
 
I would be very supprised if a chain going slack could cause a misfire. Sounds like classic coil pack failure to me. You need to get a diagnostic done to find the one thats failing, or replace all of them (depending on what is cheaper).
 
quick update went to work, drove perfect for 4 miles, came back tonight 1 mile to go it started again... This time all the power was gone. I had to really put my foot down, it gradually got worse the longer I drove it.

Instead of returning straight home, I went a couple of additional miles down a dual carraiageway, it was so bad I couldnt even get upto 30mph :mad:

My problem is that there is no way to isolate the fault, when I taken it to a garage before they have simply charged me £30 to say, 'nothing is showing up', they havent test drove it long enough or driven it while its warm.

I feel so stressed out with it right now, I feel like just getting shot of it! I know its not the ecomonical viable option. I feel sick to the stomach as the car cost near to 3K, and Ive had such little use out of it.

Any advise is appreciated.
 
I too would suggest coil packs. Out of interest are you getting a Check Engine light at all?

Also if your garage is charging you £30 to plug in an OBDII reader and read off the error log then you may want to consider a different garage, you can buy an OBDII->USB cable for not much more than that, or a standalone reader if you don't own or don't fancy using a laptop. A lot of garages will read the codes for you for free anyway if they're not busy.
 
Lum said:
I too would suggest coil packs. Out of interest are you getting a Check Engine light at all?

Also if your garage is charging you £30 to plug in an OBDII reader and read off the error log then you may want to consider a different garage, you can buy an OBDII->USB cable for not much more than that, or a standalone reader if you don't own or don't fancy using a laptop. A lot of garages will read the codes for you for free anyway if they're not busy.
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No lighst on the dash come on, the car did this and found no faults.

I take it that a coil pack failing may not nessescarly produce a engine light to come on?

What is puzzling me is the problem went away for nearly two weeks then has just come back with avengence..

Will there be an easy way for the garage to test the coil packs?

I cant keep going on like this as we plan to drive down to see my partners family soon (150 miles) theres no way Id trust the car.
 
Sounds like you need to take it to a good honest garage who are in no rush to see you out of the door or charge you the earth to establish the fault.

Perhaps make a thread for a garage request in Nottingham and see if you have any luck?

Don't lose faith in the car, they are not bad all-rounders, A to B sort of thing and are usually very reliable. I'm sure after fixing it, it'll run fine for miles and miles!
 
dalin80 said:
its actually surprisingly common.

what make of MAF did you fit? we have had many many issues with 3rd party units we now only fit genuine.
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Yeah I realized after checking the thread that if the tensioner is causing minute differences it would throw the timing out and possibly cause a misfire. What the OP is describing does sound like classic coil pack failure, on a Nissan it should generate an Ignition OBD error code though. (Had this problem recently on my Skyline, almost exactly the same symptoms).
 
Concrete said:
Yeah I realized after checking the thread that if the tensioner is causing minute differences it would throw the timing out and possibly cause a misfire. What the OP is describing does sound like classic coil pack failure, on a Nissan it should generate an Ignition OBD error code though. (Had this problem recently on my Skyline, almost exactly the same symptoms).
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The MAF I fitted was identical to the old one, same part number. Made by Bosche.

I found a very useful thread on the almera owners club, about this he changed his coils and it made no difference. It turned out to be the chain. However his car did have 90K on the clock.

I feel that the next step is going to be a visual inpection of the coilpacks and timing chain. I`ll have to make a descision from there.

With regards to loosing faith, Ive been riddiled with faults on this car all year. Ive had electrical problems, the wipers failed, stalling sorted by changing the airflow meter, now this, the sping on the clutch pedal snapped last month so theres play on the pedal (Doesnt effect anything), I really will not buy another Nissan.

I m waiting on a call from a friend who is going to check it out. Want to get it done as soon as possible.

Another thing I find very worrying is if you look for 2001 almeras in Ebay, there are a lot on there with the same mileage as mine. Im started to think im not the only one whos having these isues
 
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find a forum dedicated to your car

i found this weird problem that vectras and astras get with their idle fuel valve that two vaxhaul garages i've asked had never heard of, one member said a garage they took their car to fixed it for free because they'd had the problem many times before without knowing how to fix it
 
bledd. said:
find a forum dedicated to your car

i found this weird problem that vectras and astras get with their idle fuel valve that two vaxhaul garages i've asked had never heard of, one member said a garage they took their car to fixed it for free because they'd had the problem many times before without knowing how to fix it
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It would be nice if nissan acknowledge that this was an issue, however they refuse to do so.

Made a decision today - I am spending far too much on diagnostics on this car, its almost 8 years old, i think the best thing is to part exchange, agaist a nearly new car.

Even if its something silly which is cuaseing the fault, its probably going to cost me more in time and effort in getting to the root of the problem. With regard to going to the owners club, I signed up on the almera owners club, and read up, It seems that it is a inherent fault with this model, even if this is not the cuase now. I believe that it will happen. Many people have had chain failures after 40K or less.

The last statment that you made I find quite suprising as a friend has recommened an Astra to me, was actually going to test drive one. If you could help recommend ? I would be very greatful.
 
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