2000 Maxima Coil Problem Solved (long)

The saga of my coil problem is over, no thanks to Nissan Customer Service.

My first indication of a problem was my "Service Engine Soon" light. I felt a little shudder and on popped the light. An early morning ride to my local nissan dealer met with disappointment when I was told I needed an appointment, it was no longer first come first serve. So, I stopped by one of my local technical shop for an answer. His reading was a P1320 code. He gave me an oil change and reset the code. About a week later, another shudder and voila! another SES light.

Thanks to the newsgroup and other groups it was apparent that the problem was one of the coils. I decided to change all 6 instead of just one. I called my friendly nissan service department and was shocked at the price of $540 for coils and $300 for labor. I lucked out and found Woodmen Nissan in Colorado Springs, Colorado. URL

and was quoted a price of $280.20 for parts and $15 for shipping. ($46.70 each) NOTE: if anyone decides to order all 6 be aware that the 3 front and

3 back coils are different. Nissan refers to them as left and right, but, they're actually front and back in my way of thinking. Only one in the back is a little more difficult to get to, the rest are easy.

In the meantime, I called Nissan USA and contacted Customer Service in hopes of some sort of goodwill effort on their part. They essentially played dumb about the problem, although I cited some of the web sites on the web where the problem was indicated for the 2000 Maxima. They not only would not cover any expenses for 6 coils, but not even of one. I blew my stack and indicated that this was my fifth Nissan since 1981, which their records indicated, their only response "Sorry!" I indicated that this would be my last Nissan. This is particularly troubling to me since Nissan has been aware of the problem for some time and re-engineered the coils. I had been a loyal Nissan customer for almost 25 years, but, obviously their loyalty does not extend back to their customers.

I ordered the parts from Woodmen, picked up 6 platinum plugs and when the coils arrived on the specified date, my grandson put all 6 coils and plugs in in 20 minutes. The next day I took in the Maxima for an AC recharge and they reset my SES code. The car runs like a charm.

I understand from others writing of this problem that they had better luck with Customer Service when Nissan Service called. So, you might be wiser to have Nissan Service find the problem, identify the faulty coil and see if you can wrangle some goodwill through the Service Department. You might want to reference Service Bulletin NTB01-059 which identifies the problem.

Good Luck .... Bob