Thread: 1997 Nissan Maxima Hesitation

Trying to trouble shoot my dads maxima. The only engine code I'm getting is vehicle speed sensor.

The problem is the car randomly stutters at 2000 rpms and some times stalls. I've checked the plugs, and made sure everything was plugged in. I'm thinking it could be the MAF but I have no codes indicating such.

Change the speed sensor.. Happened in a friend's 2002 altima.

Same symptom and same code. Changed speed sensor and now its fine.

Wanted to add that the car is a 5 speed.

possibly MAF sensor

have you tried cleaning it out? When i say cleaning i mean taking the sensor out and looking at the wire for any traces of carbon.

I had a Mazda MPV i was working on that was hesitating, breaking up at WOT and had no trouble codes.


Found out the MAF was caked with carbon on the outside of the sensor wire , took a pick and peeled off the carbon and then sprayed it with some electronic parts cleaner and it stopped hesitating and breaking up.


Unplug it and see if it runs better. Otherwise you can test it by using a voltmeter and connecting it to the 5 v ref, wire and see if the volts go up as you accelerate .


IS the speedo not working?

speedo works perfectly

then MAF ia most likely the problem. when they go bad they throw all kinds of strange DTC's that have nothing to do with the MAF

My b15 did this a lot too - sucked, but buckle down, spend the $80 on a maf and go to it.

Got a used MAF and car runs great. Still throws odd codes but nothing that effects drive-abilty.

This almost sounds like the issue i was having before the new issue of hesitation. You may have a loose wire somewhere for the speed sensor, may be tripping out the ecu with it getting no speed imput, and making it think its hitting a rev limiter like what happend with my 200sx.

Matt, more than likely your old one is still good and just needed to be cleaned with quick dry maf cleaner. Ive seen a couple maximas come in doing the same thing. Had one come in that ran like utter crap and popped the air filter box and no air filter. Leaves all up against the screen and saw all the dirt caked on the hotwire. cleaned it off, put a filter in and good to go.

Common problem with them.

Had one that was soo caked with oil and dirt residue that it put the car in limp mode. Cleaned the maf, cleared the code and whalla. Ran like a champ.