Engine knocking

I have a 2003 Maxima and I started hearing engine knocking a few weeks after I purchased it. At this point I've been driving it for 8 months. It was pretty subtle at first and I did not recognize it as engine knocking but it has gotten a lot worse over the last few months. The problem is that the knocking is intermittent and usually starts a few hours into driving. My attempts to have it looked at by a dealership have not been successful because the problem is not easy to recreate. I get the familiar "we don't see any problems" and nothing gets done. I am currently waiting for it to get much worse so that that the problem is easier to detect but, needless to say, this is not an ideal option. I get regular oil changes and use 93 oct. gas. Is there any way to detect engine knocking aside from test driving the car and actually hearing it? In other words, can I prove to the dealership that the problem exists in some other way?

I have a 2003 Maxima and I started hearing engine knocking a few weeks after I purchased it. At this point I've been driving it for 8 months. It was pretty subtle at first and I did not recognize it as engine knocking but it has gotten a lot worse over the last few months. The problem is that the knocking is intermittent and usually starts a few hours into driving. My attempts to have it looked at by a dealership have not been successful because the problem is not easy to recreate. I get the familiar "we don't see any problems" and nothing gets done. I am currently waiting for it to get much worse so that that the problem is easier to detect but, needless to say, this is not an ideal option. I get regular oil changes and use 93 oct. gas. Is there any way to detect engine knocking aside from test driving the car and actually hearing it? In other words, can I prove to the dealership that the problem exists in some other way?


had the car ever had the Service Engine Soon light on? the reason why i'm asking is because someone i know has a VQ30DE and the warranty on it was over. dealer mechs told her it would take around $350 to fix the problem. btw her car has only 25k miles on it and has never been tuned ever since the roll out and now it's knocking. before, the dealer mech was able to find out what caused the SES and said it was the O2 sensor at one time...the other time...it was the knock sensor and both problems haven't been fixed. they just simply reset the ecu to turn off the SES light. this is a gradual problem as it begins mostly with the O2 sensors in many maxes, but start looking at the knock sensors first. take it to a different nissan dealer if it gets worse or an infiniti dealer if possible.

also, since the car should still be under warranty see if nissan can change out the knock sensors. don't let the warranty expire and they pinpoint the problem heh...