2000 maxima has a miss!!!

[morganbrock]

hello everybody im new here, I have a 2000 nissan maxima with the 3.0liter and it has 160,000 miles, and when you kick the car into passing gear, the rpm's climb but the car doesnt gain speed and it misses at the same time, I have changed all 6 spark plugs to the NGK platinum, I just really dont have a clue what is going on with the car, but the car runs great until you go into passing gear and the same when you pull out from a dead stop and put it to the floor, its been a little while since I have changed the transmission fluid and filter, but I would think that wouldnt have anything to do with it, and one other thing while the car is in passing gear, when it does shift out the transmission kicks really hard, please let me know if you have a solution.....

[mister2nr]

if you are flooring it and the RPM's are not changing and your getting a lot of hesitation it could be a possible bad MAF sensor. Its common but also you could have bad coils. Do you have an engine light on? If so or if not you still need to check for any codes in the system. I would start with getting the codes checked first and get back to us. If you do not have any way you should go to a local auto zone and they will check it for free normally and give you the code read out.

[morganbrock]

I scanned the car this morning for codes, no codes were in the system, I even sprayed some mass air flow cleaner into the sensor itself but that didnt help any either, now if i have any of the coils bad on the spark plugs will it throw a code? any help is appreciated......

[mister2nr]

If you had a coil bad you might see p1320 ignition signal primary code or p0300 multi cylinder misfire or p0301 to p0306 for an individual misfire. But the thing is there is so many possibilities. Could have a clogged injector, could be low compression on a cylinder, could still be a maf just because you sprayed with cleaner wouldn't help if its already gone. If your scanner has data monitor hope that it does I would check what your MAF is reading voltage wise. I would bet on a MAF just because they don't always set a code and if it was an injector, coil, spark plug you should get a misfire code. If you can read the part number on the MAF there is an updated one if Im not mistaken. Wish I had a spare one for ya but the ones I have are different from yours they are for the mid to late 90's. Not saying 100% here but there are other possibilities.

[morganbrock]

thanks again for all the info, I finally got in touch with a good friend of mine who has been a mechanic at a nissan dealer for a while, he seems to think it is the MAF, he is going to pick up one and bring it to me and see if it fixes the problem, hopefully it does, I will let you know what happens with it, and once agian thanks for all of your help, it is greatly appreciated......

[mister2nr]

no problem. its not uncommon for them to go bad but hope everything works out for ya.

[bpomps]

having the same issue - what was your fix ?

[Q45tech]

160K is way past fuel pump weakening or failure time.

Measure PSI under these loaded conditions with a gauge taped to windshield, I assume you have replaced fuel filter every 2 years [or sooner].

Coils are a normal failure after warranty period, may be a combination of things.

[Corradoslc7]

160K is way past fuel pump weakening or failure time.

Measure PSI under these loaded conditions with a gauge taped to windshield, I assume you have replaced fuel filter every 2 years [or sooner].

Coils are a normal failure after warranty period, may be a combination of things.

Why does everyone think this is a problem with the MAF or Fuel, it's not. If the engine is gaining in RPM's but the car is not accelerating it is clearly a slipping transmission. Under light load the OP would not feel the transmission slipping as it would be minimal, it may not be slipping at all. Under heavy load the transmission is obviously not able to handle the power, especially sudden acceleration and it slips. I think it’s time to rebuild your transmission. The engine "miss" the OP is feeling could be the transmission catching and then slipping as the rpm's gain, especially since he already cleaned the MAF with no luck.