Here's the situation: I start the car up in the morning to go to work - starts without issue and idles fine, also no problems with acceleration. A few minutes down the road (typical city driving), after the engine comes up to operating temp, it still runs normally... until I come to a stop light or have to stop for traffic. About 75 % of the time at this first stop after warming up, rpm niddle will go down and the engine will just quit and all the lights on dashboard will come up. Starting it at this point is hard - I will have to give it a LOT of gas and crank for about 20 seconds before it will start back up. When it comes back to life, I have to immediately take it up to 3000rpms (or it will die again) and VERY gently ease off on the gas to slowly lower my rpms back down to 1000 (takes about a minute) where I can shift back into gear. If I drop too fast, it will stall and I have to start all over again. Sometimes the rpms will jump around some at 1500-2500 before settling down. This is all very frustrating when you are sitting in morning traffic.

When I drive home in the evening, I have the same problem all over again.

Other bits of information:- If I keep the RPMs up above 1200 the whole time I'm driving (shifting into neutral at stoplights) it won't stall.- If I drive without stopping (getting on the highway), It won't stall.- If I drive somewhere (lunch, store, etc) and leave the car for an hour or two, I can still drive off fine when I return without issue.

Getting different tips from different people online I have done the following jobs on the car thus far:1) I have replaced the knock sensor which made the car driving much smoother eversince. But the problem still exists.2) I have replaced 2[before the cat] out of three total [2 before cat, one after cat] oxygen sensors.3) I have sprayed and cleaned up the MAF sensor with CRC MAF cleaner.4) sprayed and cleaned up the throttle body[ butterfly section] inside and out, cleaned up the deposits in that.5) checked the fuel pressure which is 34-35, seems to be normal.and finally recently,6) I took apart the Idle Air Contorl Valve[IACV] and cleaned up inside with intake CRC throttle/manifold cleaner and put it back. There was significant improvement for 2 days. Car was running almost normal. Then started the old problem again with a new additional problem. New problem is, while driving sometimes it seems like car first start knocking and ultimately looses power along with sputtering SOMETIMES.Some recommendations I have gotten so far are:

-Replace the fuel PUMP and fuel FILTER- Replace the engine coolant temperature sensor anyway- Replace the throttle position sensor (switch) anyway (contacts are probably worn off with this many miles)

Any further guidance from the experts here would be much appreciated! I really need my Maxima to last. Thanks!

Probably tomorrow or day after, I will do the test with volt/ohm meter following the Haynes manual on Mass airlow sensor. In the mean time, I thought I should give the follow up about what I did today.

Today [Sat,Apr 19'08] I replaced the fuel filter. After taking apart the old filter I discovered silt was coming out from the old filter. Old filter was original nissan filter[not sure if ever been replaced or not, me being the 2nd owner of the car]. Eversince I replaced the filter, very significant imrovement with car's idle and driving. Today I drove to a couple of places[8-10 miles]. However, at night time when I was coming back home from soccer practice, the car knocked for couple of times and one time RPM niddle went down to almost 200-300rpm, but engine didn't shut off. Now I'm thinking, probably new silt is coming out from the fuel tank. In other words, fuel tank is PROBABLY full of silt. What should I do at this point?

-at this point is it only silt issue in fuel line/tank or any other problem?-After checking Mass airflow sensor if I find that bad, there will be no choice but to sell that car.[MAF sensor =$450] Any help would be appreciated.

Hello,

My wife is having the same troble with my 95 Maxima. Starts fine, works well until fist stop. Trouble restart but then no problem for the rest of the drive. I see you have done everything that is sudgested on the web. Yet you still seem to have the problem. Please let me know if you was ever able to fix the problem and how. I haven't been able to find a place that would give me a free diagnostic reading since it is a 95 car. But I am sure it is the same issue you have or had. I would hate to put money on a car that can't be fixed.

Please respond I would hate for her to stall and cause and accident.

Pro

I just replaced the MAF on my 01 I30 and the part from my shop was 150.00. Of course with 60 dollar fee to find problem and another 100 to install the total was 310. I too took off the MAF and cleaned it but it did not do it any good. I noticed a lack of power and constant spark knock even with 93 gas. It is weird that it does ok while the car is cold. I checked Auto Zone and Advance and the MAF was listed as 160 and 200 with trade in. I also had a 95 Maxima and I had a problem with a miss in the motor, not stalling though. I found it had a bad coil on one of the back plugs. The car would skip or miss when it warmed up, not while it was cold and it too had a spark knock. After replacing the coil it was smooth as silk. I found the problem by raising the hood and reving the motor at the throttle body. Listen for a spark knock and see if you can tell if it is in the front or back cylinders.

wow covington your symptoms are very similar to mine.. I originally had an erratic idle and a hesitation. I replaced the iacv and the idle is much better. It still moves some when first started up in the morning and sometimes when the car is in drive. I took it to a friend who works at nissan and the only code was the knock sensor which i changed and made no difference. When i first start the car up its much smoother but once it gets warmed up it hesitated between 1300 and 1800 rpms's. So now im not sure where to head next, should i go for the coolant temp sensor or the egr? They have a motor from a 96 maxima at my job that was taken out so im gonna see if any good parts are on it..

If you tell auto zone, oreilleys that your car is a 1995 they thinkit is an OBD1 compliant car-THEY ARE WRONG>

The plug in for OBD2 1995 is NOT by the fuse box but on thefloor underneath on the passenger side close to the ECU

Sounds like my 95 when the MAF went out

Try not to clog the injectors with that bad rusty gas.Can you hook up two or three fuel filters in tandom?