Starting Trouble 1999 Sentra SE 2.0 autotrans

[dborth1961]

Hello,

I haven't checked all the threads in the Nissan or Sentra forums yet on my problem...will do...but in the meantime maybe someone can help.

Girlfriends' car has had starting trouble starting at about 40,000k a couple years back and it has continued to current 90,000k today.

Past history was an issue of it turning over but wouldn't start....very sporadic....every few months....actually stalled on a couple of the episodes first. Usual things done by mechanics both on warranty and off...fuel filters, pumps...fuel pressure shows fine on the computer. Discussions about the Air Mass Sensor but didn't want to fork out $1000 to change that. Ultimately, the shop figured out to just put a big battery on the car and cranked it till it did start...very questionable but at least they got it going.

To avoid having the problem occur, we adopted a "Nissan start" process where we would turn the key on and listen for the fuel pump to pressure up the system and shut-off. Seemed to work...hadn't had any problems for nearly a year.

Very recent history is won't start after a short trip but difference is it won't turn over at all, but this one a very frequent issue....4 times in past week. Will start after car sits overnight or for 5 or 6 hours. Shop changed the the ignition switch as a guess, thinking it might even be related to the other starting issue.

But had same problem at 1:00 am last night. We have had a spell of hot weather in the last week....am mentioning that since it does start after it sits. It is now back sitting at the shop, hoping they will have it happen to them, since we did start it this morning and drove it there. They are thinking starter/solenoid/relays.

We think our shop people very good, but they really can't nail this one. Any ideas?

[dborth1961]

Answering my own post, we are changing the starter for the recent problem, which is probably caused by so many hard starts caused by the original unsolved problem.

Looking at other posts on Nissan Sentra's, I see the engine is the most common issue from 1997 - 2002. All of the fixes are C$1000 ticket items....distributor, intake valve timing control position sensor, mass air flow sensor, or engine control module.

Can anyone tell me we to figure out which one it is?

[Mykozo]

I know this is an obvious one, but if it won't start after short trips, but will start after it sits, then it could be your battery. I'm just about positive that any shop would check that right off the bat though, so thats probably not it. However, sometimes replacing the battery terminals and wires is necessary, if the problem is intermittent like you've had. Also, check your fuses! All of em, ECU fuse and all. I come from the Honda school, as I just got my Spec V a couple weeks ago, but I had almost exactly the same problems as you, to a T, with my Integra. The problem probably lies somewhere in your distributor, which is certainly not a 1000$ fix. You can buy a new cap and rotor for 30-50 bucks, and is not hard to do yourself. You could have a bad coil also, and this too is not a hard fix. It may take you a couple of hours, but is certainly not too difficult. Did your shop voltage test to see if your getting volts at the wires when you turn it over? If you hear your fuel pump, and the car starts sometimes (meaning not a compression problem), then I can only assume it's something electrical. If your having sensor issues, then your ECU should be throwing and error code. Is your car throwing a check engine light? If it's a sensor, and the ECU is throwing your error code (search these forums for the "how to" on that, or the shop should be able to do that) then you can probably diagnose from there. ECU's don't tend to blow up too often, but it's a possibility.