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When engine is warmed up the car begins hesitating
I have a 2000 nissan xterra and it started having a problem all of a sudden. i was driving around & when i was stopped at a stoplight it started idling irregularly, the rpm needle was going up & down then when i tried to go it hesitated - like it wasn't taking gas or something. it would kind of lurch & then pull back with the rpm needle going up & down accordingly. the next day it started up just fine, ran just fine - until the engine warmed up, then same thing, limping down the road - feeling like the car was going die - but never stalled. i have a friend looking at it & he says they've ruled out all the basic easy stuff. they thought it was a sensor, or electrical issue but still haven't pinpointed the problem. ANY IDEAS????? My 2002 Xterra V6 4x4 was running fine minus the AC stopped working a afew months ago when I stopped to get gas (gas light was on) I was leaving the station and it stalled while at idle then ran fine until I came to the next stop and it started to run rough then died and did this at every stop until I got home, it died in the drive way. It starts back up but then if not immediately given gas and moving it dies. Just a side note it is about 90 degrees and sunny out today. Any suggestions...I saw on other posting where people has said the throttle bottle spacer which we will pull and clean tonight
Re: when engine is warmed up the car begins hesitating
I really think it's the TPS, (throttle positioning sensor) on the throttle body. When this sensor is defective or out of position the vehicle will idle like that and even stall. If you haven't had it scanned, you should do so, that will probably tell you the problem.
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I have a customer with a 2000 Nissan Xterra 3.3 liter V6 with 180k miles. He stated that while driving on the highway the vehicle is fine. Once he exits the highway and drove on surface streets the engine stumbles, sputters and shuts down when he stops. The fuel pump is located under the right side rear seat. I removed the inspection cover to view the electrical connections. No problem there. I drove the vehicle for approx 20 minutes and it hesitated a little but not enough for me to come to a good conclusion. I needed the engine to heat up some more so I drove to Panda Express for lunch. I got my lunch to go, return to the vehicle and started the engine to eat while the engine idled. After my lunch was over I drove back to my customer's house. On the way God bless me with what I was searching for...the engine started to sputter. To shorten this story I replaced the distributor with a brand new assembly from AutoZone($233.65). Once I removed the factory distributor I spun it by hand and that's when I could feel that bearings were rough & worn.
Problem solved and my customer is happy.
make sure your air filter is clean and get some carb spray or throttle body spray and spray the valves and clean all the gunk off and hope that ur intake passages are not starting to clog up
jason, im gonna bet the farm that you have a clogged catalytic converter, if you can get the vehicle to your nearest muffler shop most of them will test the converter for free. they simply drill a small hole in the exhaust pipe in front of and behind the converter and compare the pressure to see if its clogged, call ahead to see if they will test it for free, most will, hope this helps
clean the throttle body and change the maf. i had this problem hard to accelerate between 35 and 50 and would almost die when idling for a while changed mass airflow sensor cheaper on ebay 38 and i can of cleaner it too 2 cleaning after that it runs better now
try disconnecting the MAF (mass airflow sensor) - it is located after the air filter, usually a black box in the intake tube. Could also be the IAC valve which monitors the engine temp, that can be disconnected but will cause high idle if removed, dont know where it is on your car though.
If the MAF is faulty, disconnecting it will make the car idle and run again, but will generate a CEL (check engine lamp) on the dash just because the MAF is not seen by the ecu, but it will run on a default map till you get another one fitted.
COMPUTER ISSUE.. MY 2000 EXTERRA ALSO DID THIS HAD IT IN THE SHOP FOR 2 MONTHS THEY NEVER FIXED IT SO I HAD TO TRADE IT IN AND TAKE THE LOSS! :( NOW I SEE IT DRIVING AROUND TOWN!
I had a problem on my Nissan Xterra 2000. Symptons sound similar. In my case, it ran fine for a while and then suddenly the engine starts to stumble and lose output. At one point it did not even have enough HP to move. Irregular idling too. Thought it was water in my fuel. Bought water remover from the store and added to gas tank. Problem did not go away. Instead, "Service Engine Soon" light came on. Had to have it towed to the dealer as there was no way the engine could keep up with traffic. Dealer replaced the "Crank Position Sensor" today. Parts $33.00, Labor: $300 (about 3 hrs worth of work). Seems to work fine now but I will wait and see. Dealer also stated that Distributor bearing appears to be noisy and will need to be replaced sooner or later. I will wait for it to go before I fix that.
Do you have a check engine light come on when it has problems? If so I would check anything that relies on closed loop operation to run smooth. You most likely have a sensor not reading properly. The check engine light is a big indicator in this problem.
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