Dangerous Throttle Delay Issue ? ? ?

[KMan81]

Has anyone had a problem / heard reports of a problem in which you hit the gas pedal and the engine does not respond for 10-15 seconds?

I have a problem on my 08 Altima Coupe in which I am experiencing this. I have a long drive on country roads to work each day. For the majority of my drive I keep moving with no stops. After about 20 minutes of driving there is a certain point where I come to a stop sign at a busy road I have to turn left on. Typically I have to wait 30 seconds to a minute before I can turn.

About every other day I hit the gas to pull out and get an initial blip in the RPMs and then it just idles for 10-15 seconds. Obviously this creates a very dangerous situation as you are idling half way through the intersection. This does not only happen at this intersection but it seems to happen fairly reliably there.

Things I have noted:1. The occurances are much higher on colder mornings. The issue basically went away over the summer.2. It does not matter how far the gas pedal is depressed3. It does not matter if the car is in Drive or Manual mode4. It does not seem to matter what brand / grade of gasoline I am using5. It does not matter how full the fuel tank is or when the last oil change was.6. I have never had this happen twice in any given drive.

This has been happening for a while but I can't duplicate it with the dealer's tech in the car. Has anyone had anything like this or heard reports of anything like it?

Thank you for your help.

[Viper5000]

sounds like something with the drive by wire....

anyways I would probably first reset the ecu.. leave the negative off the battery for at least an hour and see if that does anything.

[Mr.Coupe]

When you're at a complete stop and then step on the gas do your RPM's jump up and down between 1-2K? Sort of a quick rev back and forth between 1-2K. If that's the case then your pressure control celonoid in the transmission is bad and has to be replaced.

Ricky C.

[KMan81]

Thank you both for the feedback. I'll try disconnecting the battery for an hour this weekend.

In the meantime it actually happened 3 times on my way to work this morning (one continuous trip). After the first I kept a close eye on what happens. The RPMs jump to about 1800 when I hit the gas then basically crawl from 1800-2200 over 15 seconds. Th RPMs do not rapidly alternate as proposed and in fact never drop. As soon as this begins I have zero power at the wheels (the vehicle slows down as if coasting).

[mcheddadi]

man, cvt is a bag of fail

[Dexion]

man, cvt is a bag of fail

Good thing Nissan extended the warranty huh?

[Zerep]

i wonder if you could convince a dealer to install a manual transmission

[Sentientbydesign]

Do you have VDC?

[KMan81]

Well, I tried resetting the ECU and the issue still occurs.

Regarding the comments about the the transmission, are you inferring that this is a transmission issue?

The car does have stability control. I do not recall if it is VDC or not. I'll check this evening.

Does anyone think it is possible that this could be an issue with the injectors needing to be cleaned (the car has ~25K miles on it)? If so, would the stuff that you add to a tank of gas do anything to help?

[KMan81]

I was mistaken, the car does not have stability control, it appears that comes only with the 3.5.

[KMan81]

Anyone else have any ideas? Has anyone here used the injector cleaner solution you add to your fuel tank?

[Viper5000]

Anyone else have any ideas? Has anyone here used the injector cleaner solution you add to your fuel tank?

At this point I would bring it to the dealer.....

[RicerX]

At this point I would bring it to the dealer.....

Most definitely a warranty issue of some type. Given how much goes on with the CVT, something doesn't sound right. Though if it's an intermittent issue, it's something electrical. Mechanical failures seldom occur randomly as if the problem fixes itself then reappears.

Ricky's suggestion sounds like it's in the ballpark, even though it's a bit different from your problem description. Let Nissan check it out.

[KMan81]

My issue is that I've brought it in a couple of times and they've been unable to duplicate the issue. As such they won't do anything. Since I can't get it to do it on command I haven't been able to duplicate it for them either.

[Viper5000]

My issue is that I've brought it in a couple of times and they've been unable to duplicate the issue. As such they won't do anything. Since I can't get it to do it on command I haven't been able to duplicate it for them either.

Than just give it to them for how ever long it takes until they can reproduced it.... I wouldn't want to be driving my car if it was doing that s***

[kerrton]

Yeah, this is a no brainer, if you're sitting at a standstill with the engine revving but no power being relayed to the wheels, that is a HUGE issue and has nothing to do with dirty injectors etc..

Also, by not having the problem diagnosed and fixed, you could be doing damage so you'd better take it in and tell them to fix it no matter howl ong it takes, this is a serious issue.