1997 Maxima with MAJOR unidentifiable problem(s)

Oh, this just keeps getting better and better!!! So I took it to a Nissan dealer (had it towed - AGAIN - thank g-d for AAA!!). I think I had it towed there the last week of July. After having it for 2 weeks without even looking at it, they FINALLY looked at it last week (8/17/04). Took them a day and a half to figure out what was wrong with it. They finally determined that there were two wires that were either crossing or shorting out and they were causing the OC sensor and the Crank Shaft sensor to go bad. They fixed that, got the car running and then determined there was a mis-fire problem. They fixed that. So they call on 8/20/04 and say the car is fixed it's running great, the check engine light (which had been on for over a year) was not on anymore, no codes were coming up on the diagnostic, it's in perfect running condition and come pick it up whenever. The bill for all of that was $1,164.71. Okay, not great, but not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. So last night (8/25/04) I go pick it up. How about out of that bill, only $84 dollars was for parts and the rest was for labor....man I'm in the wrong line of business!

Now, ready for this... I literally pull in my driveway (by the way I'm about 40 min. away from the dealer) and the friggin check engine light comes on. Well at this point it's now after 9pm so no one is even at the dealer to call. So this morning I go out to go to work hoping that it's just the stupid check engine light for some reason and I get about 4 blocks from my house and the car just dies. After about 15 min. I get it started again and it sputters the entire way back to the house.

So I call the dealer and tell them that as soon as I got home last night the check engine light came on and so on. So here's what they say to me "bring it in and we'll look at it." I swear if I could have reached through the phone and choked the idiot on the other end I would have. Anyway, I say "uh, sir, did you not hear me when I said IT DOESN'T RUN???" I said "you're 40 min. away from me and I AM NOT paying to have it towed to you." They said "well, we have a towing service that will come tow it and then after we look at it, if we determine that the problem is related to something we worked on, we'll pay for the tow. However, if it is a problem that is unrelated to what we already worked on, we'll bill you for the tow along with the repairs." OH HELL NO!!!! Like they're really going to call and say "yeah, it was our fault, sorry, we'll pay for it" - like that might happen.

So now I REALLY don't know what to do. It's been 4 months, 2 shops, the dealership and almost $1800 later and it's still messed up...... I can't take much more!

Okay, here's the latest - the dealer STILL has the car and they are now saying that they need to replace the wire harness because every time they fix one wire another one breaks and they just don't understand why. $972.22 plus tax will be the cost for this.

Here's where I lose my mind... I just paid those (insert expletives here) darn near $1200 for apparently NOTHING and now they want darn near another GRAND for something that in my opinion (according to what they are saying) should have been done in the first place.

This is EXACTLY why I didn't want to take it to a dealer in the first place!!!!!

HELP PLEASE!!!!!

If the copper wire is actually breaking then that means either the root cause of the problem has not yet been identified or the problem was caused during manufacture of the car.

Time to sit down with the Service Manager and have a heart to heart about giving you break.

I also posted in the maxima.org forums ...

I think there's too much concentration on electronics and fuel delivery. A very similar issue happened to me on my '98 (intermittent hard starts getting worse over an 8-9 month period and then more dead than starting). Nissan was blaming it on the color of the pavement (no, not literally) and I wound up with a new fuel filter, ignition switch, cleaned fuel injectors

- none of which worked. Finally I contacted a maxima.org enthusiast, Dave B, and he informed me that Maxima starters are weak. They have improved the gearing to provide more torque to turn the motor over on the OEM version having realized the weakness.

Put a new starter in my car and haven't had a problem since.

FYI - the bad starter was also seemingly sending electrical spikes or interference that my aftermarket stereo would pick up as pops. Once the starter was replaced, these 6 month old sounds magically disappeared. I'm only guessing this to be possible, but it seems plausible.

Yeah ... and FYI ... Customer Service guys are SALESMEN. They make a commission off the services they sell. Not to say this is every service guy's only motivation, but definitely to be considered.

-Big_Ham