Mysterious Stalling

[smurfdawg]

Hi everyone,

I thought I might post this just in case any of you are suffering from the same problem. Hopefully my 4 month painful saga may shorten your suffering.

My 2003 SL AWD started having a problem coincidentally when the weather warmed up. It would mysteriously stall. It never did it before but when it did, the problem was here to stay. It stalls sometimes when it was just sitting there warming up, sometimes idling at a red light, sometimes in the middle driving (dangerous as no power steering etc.... ) It happened unpredictably and suddenly without warning.

While driving you can definately notice that the englne was a little louder than usual and when idling, it was a slight higher than normal....still under 1k but higher than usual.

Besides the sudden shut off, the car also had a hard time starting up. When it was running perfect it took about 2 seconds to start up. After the problem came, it took about 6-10 seconds to start up.

My regular mechanic (private non-dealer) was on vacation and out of the country for 3 months. So I made my way to the dealership. They diagnosed it and told me it was the camshaft sensor 1. I paid the $250 bucks and got it replaced. A week goes by and the same problem again. This one was not so prevelant and didn't occur so frequent as the last one. The last problem occured at least once a day. This new problem was once every 3 - 4 days. I took it back to the dealer and they told me it was now the cam sensor 2. I paid another $250 and had that changed.

The problem never went away. I took it back to the dealer and they told me there was something wrong with the electricals and required an expensive lengthy diagnostic. I had all the old parts they had removed and had decided not to fix the vehicle. Too scared to drive the Mo, I drove the spare car until my mechanic returned. When he did returned I brought the car to him, told him what I had done, and showed him the bunk parts Nissan removed.

He examines the cam shaft sensors and explains to me how they work and why they are a sealed unit with no serviceable parts. He inspects cam sensor 1 carefully and notices that the sealed casing was cracked and it leaked oil when position at a certain angle. He explains to me that it was not normal for oil to be in the unit. He paused for a moment, smiled and said he knew what the problem with my car was. He went to my car, unplugged the electrical harness connected to cam sensor 1 and sprayed the connector with electrical cleaner. Out spewed this brown liquid. He sprayed both the fairly new cam sensor and the harness until it was cleared. Plugged it back in and my car never had a problem again.

He explained to me that when the cam sensor 1 went bad it took in oil and passed it into the harness so that there was a film of oil between the contacts of the harness and the cam sensor. When the dealership changed the sensor they didn't clean the harness like he did and so the film remained and a bad connection still existed. He also believes that there is nothing wrong with cam sensor 2. He replaced the old cam sensor 2 back in and the car still runs fine.

That's my story and I hope it helps someone who have similar problems.

Cheers

[hegihome]

Hello,

Thank you so much for posting this. I had the EXACT same problem, and my mechanic sent my car to an Infiniti dealer after 4 weeks of troubleshooting and changing sensors. The Infiniti dealer replaced the same sensors that had already been replaced, and of course it was still stalling. Anyway, I forwarded your post to my mechanic and my car has been running for 3 weeks!

Thanks again!