I have a question about a 1993 Nissan Quest minivan...pardon me if I sound silly, I'm a computer guy, not a car guy. :-)
I just bought a used 93 quest and the guy I bought it from said it would need some exhaust work...maybe the manifold gasket or bolt. I remember reading that manifold bolts were a common problem with this van.
We test drove for 30 minutes with no problems other than the loud exhaust.
Of course first time my wife drives the van, it dies while she's driving. I don't have a clue here...would that have anything to do with the manifold/exhaust?
She was making a right turn and it just died. She put it in park and it started right back, no problem. It has 116k miles on it.
A few more problems with the Quest I was hoping you could help with...
I took the van out to a big empty parking lot today and tested it for about
30 minutes. Driving slow, fast, moderate, turning, stopping, idling...all driving conditions and it did not stall out again.
I am assuming this is due to the manifold problem that we have but besides being LOUD in the exhaust (needs a new muffler too), when idling it will sound like its trying to stall..RRRr RRRr RRRr RRRr ...it does that for about 8 seconds then for about 4 sounds normal. During the stutter I can feel the van like its trying to move a bit (I have my foot on the brake). Since I'm not a car person I'm totally guessing here but does that seem like a problem with the manifold? What exactly would be symptoms of manifold problems. Is manifold work pretty costly on the 1993 Quest?
My wife drove it this morning and for about 2 minutes the gas hand went from completely empty to full then went to about 1/2 a tank (what it actually has). I couldn't reproduce this today...any ideas?
Something else we found out, the drivers side power window seems to be out of kilter some how. It goes down fine but when going up it BARELY moves until it gets about half way up then works fine...the last time I had to actually help it up to the half way point. Is it just out of some kind of track?
This is my first Nissan and my first "nice" car (after a string of smaller compact cars like a 96 Metro, 94 Prizm, 88 Nova, 90 GMC truck...so far I am REALLY liking this van other than the idle and the mystery of it dying that one time.
Your technician will have to drill out the old, broken exhaust manifold studs and probably have to have the exhaust manifolds machined. This is a *very* time consuming job so you're actually paying for the labor more than the parts. But it does need done. That and the rest of the exhaust work will rid you of the noise problems.
Given the above was let go for so long I would be willing to bet that the overall state of maintenance is probably lacking on this vehicle. That's not to say it's a basket case, just that you should be prepared to invest a bit in some routine maintenance items. The timing belt (a tensioner and some seals), probably a water pump once they have the timing belt covers off and can inspect the weep hole on it, spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor cap/rotor, other drive belts, air/fuel filters will more than likely be items that are past due for servicing.
The exhaust manifold issue would not cause your stalling problem, but previous neglected maintenance could, as well as could a bit of bad fuel in the tank. Let the tank get nearly empty then fill with a good brand of premium fuel, have the above maintenance items checked out/done and then run 1-2 more full tanks of premium fuel through the vehicle after letting each tank run down near empty.
As far as the fuel indicator issue, good question. The only thing that I would think would make it swing to full when it isn't and then back down would be a momentary grounding out of the wire to the gauge, but I would tend to think it would be an easy problem to reproduce if that was the case.
Also, make sure you only use genuine Nissan parts in having your vehicle serviced. When you go in for servicing again, have them spray some silicone spray in the window track rubber to see if that solves your problem, or at least minimizes it. Given that it's a '93, it wouldn't be out of the question for it to have cracks in the rubber and if that's the case, it's time to have new rubber installed. I need to do this on both of the front doors of my '95 Pathfinder this spring.
This may be a stupid question, but can't you weld the exhaust manifolds on to the engine to seal off the leak? Chances are you'll never have to take them off again anyway.
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