1996 Maxima Engine Stall While Stationary

[Jen425]

I just bought a used 1996 Maxima with 115K. I'm having a problem where the car with stall sometimes times when at a red light or if stopped and in park. The guy who I bought the car from said it had that problem ever since he used fuel injector cleaner, and that it may be some of the gunk causing the stall.

My friend thought it could have been the battery: the connection was all corroded. Aside from that problem, it seemed like the car was in good shape and well taken care of, so I bought it. We brought the car back to my friend's shop, he cleaned up the battery and some other things. We put it on the lift, checked out the rest of the car, and everything seemed good. While running the engine in park, the car again stalled. We ran the diagnostics and two error messages came up, one about a Knock sensor, and the other I don't remember (I wrote them down and will post when I find the paper). He erased the messages and the car stalled again. We checked the messages again and there were none.

Anyway, he's not sure what the problem is, he doesn't work on Nissan's. Anyone else experience a similar problem? Thanks!

[MinisterofDOOM]

Probably idle air control valve. Do a search for "IACV" in the Maxima forum and you should get TONS of threads.There's also a how-to for cleaning the IACV in the FAQ sticky at the top of the forum under 4th gen.

[Jen425]

I was luck to have a friend who is a mechanic, and he spent a few hours looking at my car. It actually wasn't the IACV. The people who owned the car before me had replaced it, as well as many other things on the car. I bought the car for cheap and think I did so because of this problem. My friend finally diagnosed the problem: a wire coming off of the air mass flow meter had a bad connection. He said it showed no signs that it was a bad connection, but if he giggled it, the car would stall. Anyway, instead of the crimp connection, he decided to solder it. IT WORKS LIKE NEW NOW!!! I'm sure someone else out there has had this problem, try looking at this before replacing the entire car. Also, before the fix, the car also had jerky motion on the freeway at times. That's fixed as well.

[NutriaforBreakfast]

Yes there is nothing worse that a giggling MAF. I wouldntrecommend spraying with carb cleaner or even Mass AirFlow sensor cleaner when you do a tune up later. Therehave been mixed results with people cleaning the MAF.I would only clean mine as a last resort.

You got lucky on that electrical repair as it could have been mucho$