Intermittent sudden ignition failure

My middle daughter had a maxima that would do this occasionally. I found a Nissan tech on-line that suggested the motor/engine control relay. I changed it out and her car never stalled again.

have you had the ECU scanned for codes? I think there are some that may not set the CEL? Anyway, most emmissions sensors that might cause stalling should trigger the check engine light, so that leaves some relays or maybe the computer itself? Even if there were some kind of fuel starvation - I think you'd get misfire codes.

and, similar to your battery issue, I recently had a one-off stall and some odd codes get set acoupla times on my wife's Outback. But before I could swap in some sparkplugs that I though could be the problem, her battery failed and after it was replaced, the codes never returned. So, yeah - I'd say a weak battery 'could' create some odd conditions on a car.

Thanks for reminding me about the Check Engine light. In fact, both mine and my wife's are on now. Since my Forester runs fine, I just positioned a piece of black tape so I won't be distracted by the light! I agree, though, her light could actually be telling us something meaningful.

-- Charles Packer

Charles, One possibility: Worn ignition lock getting the switch a little off position. We have had several cars that eventually grew upset at the pounds of keys on my wife's key chain, compared to my key chain. The symptom there was that the key was impossible to turn, but if it resulted in the switch being sort of "in between" positions then vibration could occasionally kill one of the switched circuits. Just a guess, but you could try, while driving with your keys, tugging a bit on the key chain in different directions to see if anything happens. This could explain why it happens repeatably for your wife, but not for you. But it would not have any particular connection to the engine replacement. Bob Wilson