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Ack! What's going on with my engine...?

For the past several months, I've been noticing that my '98 GXE will have a rough time starting in the morning. It will start, but almost immediately die. If I kick the accelerator, it will start up okay. If the car is warm, it starts fine. Driving, I notice no issues...

I took it into a fairly reliable shop today. He diagnosed it and tore the engine apart. He said it wasn't throwing a code. Anyway, when he got into the engine, he says the valve cover gasket is shot and leaking oil. The coils are getting oil on them and (I'm paraphrasing from my notes here.) the fuel injectors are getting dirty.

He recommends replacing the valve cover gasket, the coil, the injectors, and the plugs. The plugs were just replaced about six months ago during my

60K service, so I'm annoyed by that.

What are your opinions? I'm taking the car home today, cause I don't have time to leave it this week. I plan to do something by next Monday.

He says total will be $1039 for the repairs and he'll need the car for a day or two.

It's a '98 GXE with 74,800 miles.

Reply to
filesiteguy
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I'd stay away from that mechanic. Misfiring (coils) would produce a code, injectors at 74K is very unlikely and would also produce a code, and your plugs are likely fine. Besides, any of those would effect warm running too. I would suspect your temp sensor is bad. You may need a valve cover gasket, but that's cheap. Either buy the shop manual and fix it yourself, or take it to someone that knows what he's doing and is honest (if you can find one).

Reply to
JimV

Thanks for the tip - I planned (and still plan) to run it by this other guy. Of course, my wife is now thinking, "04 Maxima..."

Reply to
filesiteguy

I agree with this, sounds like he's just guessing. American cars have more problems with "dirty injectors" than foreign cars due to their injector design.

Sometimes.

I doubt they would produce a code. Not every possible problem on the engine produces a code in the ECU.

Unless someone put some BS plugs in it like Bosch platinums, that could be the whole problem!

have you ever replaced them on these cars? It's not "cheap" or real easy to do, lots of stuff is in the way. Maybe on an altima it's "cheap" but not on a maxima.

And or tear the car up trying. :-)

IMHO it sound like it may just needs a good throttle body cleaning for the running problem, an out of spec temp sensor would set a code.

Reply to
Steve T

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