95 hesitates & runs a little rough

[Captain James T Kirk]

Hi have a 95 Quest with the V6. I just got it with 160000 miles. I don't know the maintenance history of this car. It runs pretty good, but hesitates from a stop, and sometimes hesitates when accelerating. And this gets worse when it's raining. Is it possible moisture has gotten into some electrical component?

I was told it could be the ignition coils, does this engine have engine coils or a regular distributor? I don't know much about that. But I looked under the hood and the spark plug wires looked new. I'm thinking it may have had plugs and wires not too long ago. Just what the heck are ignition coils anyway? Is that what they used to call plugs and wires?

Also the belt squeaks! At least I hope it's the belt that squeaking. The serpentine belt does not feel loose, and if I understand it correctly the tensioner should keep it adjusted correctly, without a lot of manual adjustment? I bought some belt conditioner and I'll try that for now.

Finally, I'm going to put (front) brake pads on it soon. I've only done brakes once before, and it went pretty smoothly, is there anything unusual or specific to Quest about the brakes I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance. Overall I'm enjoying the minivan, it's in good cosmetic condition, drives out pretty good and is a very comfortable ride. This one has some electrical issues, the radio didn't work and I bought an aftermarket double-din head unit, but discovered that the problem was in the wiring behind the radio. So I've got that to contend with, and it had premium sound with the optional CD player. I will probably run new power and new speaker wire and bypass all of the original sound system wiring and the OEM amp. I'm sure my aftermarket radio will put out sufficient power.

[Ace2cool]

First off, brakes are pretty standard on these. No worries there. Just remove and replace.

Belts squeaking, how do they look? Dry rotted, cracked, ect? You can try some belt conditioner, or if the belt looks fine, just tighten it up a little. If it is dry though, go ahead and replace, cause it'll leave you stranded when it breaks.

As far as the hesitation, that's a tricky one. It's a 95, so OBDI, so scanning codes won't really help with this issue. You could go and clean engine connectors. Early to mid-90's Nissans have bad problems with green corrosion on electrical components. You could try that. However, I'd see if there's a procedure to check the MAF to see if it's working properly. The coils are also something you can look into. Hesitation is a broad term though, so a video would help troubleshoot.

Also, it is distributed, not coil-on-plug.