[SOLVED] Nissan Micra '98 cut-out and wont restart

Push the car more than 1 quarter of a mile from your house. Then they will come out. If they accuse you of lying, you can say this is a seperate incident, and thus must be treated as such. Providing you didn't give any details, this should all work fine.

On the other hand, you're better off fixing it yourself with advice from here, as you will learn things :)

The standard trick on flooded Micras is to locate and remove the fuse for the fuel pump, then crank the engine several times in 15 second bursts with the accelerator pedal held to the floor. Once the fuse is then replaced, the engine should start easily.

It is very common for Micras (and others) to flood if run briefly from cold, then stopped.

If you regularly stall at that junction, either the car needs a service, you should allow the engine to warm up a bit before setting off, or your driving technique need adjusting :-)

WRT to learning some basic maintenance, have a look to see if any local colleges offer short courses.

If you want to see if a Haynes manual will be of any help to you in the future, they are often available at local libraries.

HTH

Chris

Now for attempted help:

What happens when you try to start it? It turns over as usual, but just wont 'catch'? Micras, especially older models (what reg-plate does your begin with?) basically can't be started, driven a very short distance, stopped, and re-started. This is because the engine has been over-fuelled; the only solution is to wait. If you try tomorrow, you may find it's ok.

Keep in mind that if it's on a hill, I imagine this may make a difference. If it's manual, get the car facing down the hill, and try to bump start it tomorrow by leaving it in Neutral, rolling it down the hill, and try to start it. Might take a long try to work; if you find it fails initially, or nearly catches, touch the accelerator, and don't stop turning.

You can realisticaly turnover the car for about 20 seconds, but you don't want to drain the battery from re-trying this over and over.

Using a key without a transponder to try to start it is equivalent to removing the fuse.

Ian Stirling wrote in news:45ca38ba$0$8737$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net:

If you happen to have such a thing :-).

If they're easily accessible, would it not be best to simply unplug the injectors, thereby eliminating the need to disable the pump and also preventing further fuel from entering under residual pressure?

Or would this cause a malfunction on certain systems, due to the open circuiting of the injectors?

Stu

[...]

Now that is a neat idea!

I've a neighbour who often gets her Micra out of the garage, then goes back to the house, then the car won't start. I've shown her the standard "flooded start" technique of just cranking with the pedal on the floor, but once I had to remove the fuel pump fuse for her.

Now I can get her to buy a spare key, and I will make it a "magic key"!

Chris

That's simple then - just wrap the head of the key in aluminium foil.

John

Thanks for the help all. In response to David R's question, I have an R reg micra. The engine is turning over but, as you said, it wont catch. Unfortunately I am at the bottom of a hill (a valley to be precise), so unfortunately its only uphill. First tomorrow (well...later on today) I will try starting the car again. If that doesn't work then I will try taking the fuse out, as I don't have a key without a transponder (does alu foil really work?) Unfortunately when I learnt to drive I was driving a diesel, whereas my micra is petrol and I'm not quite used to it yet, so I have stalled a few times at the junction, though it's not the easiest junction to negotiate, as you have to make a quick getaway (rarely any gaps in the traffic) and the junction itself faces up a steep hill. I'm not sure about unplugging the injectors, as I don't know where they are! Thanks for the advice all the same though. I'll have to find the fusebox (though the internet will help with that) and I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks!

It worked for me. I wasn't sure whether my Diesel VW Transporter had an immobilizer fitted, so I just wrapped the head of the key in foil as a test.

Sure enough, all instrument lights came on as normal, and the engine cranked willingly. But it would not start until I removed the foil.

John

As others have said, its probably flooded.

Ensure you keep the accelorator wide open whilst cranking, either fuse in or out, to allow maximum airflow to dilute the rich mixture.

It will work better if you crank in long bursts than short ones, and if it does catch, hold it at 2-3000rpm for afew seconds to fully clear when it does start.

Although the micra's are well renowned for easily flooding and a no-start, I'd still recommend you have the HT components and plugs checked if not replaced, and / or the car serviced if its due.

Tim..

Ok I had a look inside, but I'm not entirely sure which fuse in the fuel pump fuse. The cover to the fuse box is labelled with which fuse is which, but none of the fuses are labelled "fuel pump", so any ideas as to what it would be labelled? Thanks!

The handbook should tell you what fuse number does what.

Unfortunately the handbook only states where the fusebox is and how to remove the fuses, but nothing about which fuse is which. I'll get the fusebox cover and tell you what the fuses are labelled as. I'll post again in a sec!

Right. The cover shows 11 fuses, not all of which there are fuses for in my fusebox.

FL30A - ABS ACTR

10A - TAIL 15A - H/LAMP RH 15A - H/LAMP LH FL25A - POWER WINDOW FL25A - RAD FAN FL30A - ABS MTR FL30A - IGN SW FL25A - ENGINE CONT FL65A - BATT 15A - COND FAN

That's all the fuses it lists, so I hope that's useful. Once I take the right fuse out and crank the engine with the accelerator floored, what will I expect to hear (will it sound any different than when the fuse was in)? Thanks!

I took a pic of a micra fuse panel (caution: it's a '93 micra so may be differnt one in yours.). This fuse block is to the right of the steering wheel ie INSIDE the car - there's panel - pull it off to see the fuses. I'll go an up load the pic and post the address here in a few mins...

Here it is...

Reply to my own reply - getting those fuses out and in is a pig (unless you have very small hands). There is a plastic clip - sometimes inthe fuse cove lid that makes the job easy. Worth looking for it.

Thanks for getting back to me. I found the fusebox inside the car and found a diagram on the back of the cover. The fusebox I have is a different layout, it has 7 rows of 5 fuses, but it showed me which the fuel pump was. I removed the fuse and floored the accelerator, whilst cranking the engine, repeated several times, put the fuse back in, and the car started first time (as if it had never had a problem!) I know how to avoid this again thanks to you advice, but how did this method work, and why wouldn't the car start in the first place (why is flooding a problem)? Thanks for your time, and sorry for the endless questions!

Many modern Fuel injected engines suffer from overfuelling / flooding if started from cold and then immediately shut off (or stalled), as for some reason the ECU's programming is such that it injects waaay more fuel than is actually needed for a cold-restart, and consequently there is too much fuel to ignite.

There are at least a large handful of cars which are guarrenteed to flood if shut off after a cold start, and the K11 micra is one of them.

If you are prepared, you can often effect a restart with a wide open throttle and a long crank, but only if done immediately. If that fails you'll need remove the pump fuse and / or plugs to dry them off.

If it happens again, you know what to do now!

Tim...