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93 Sentra XE running problems..

2K views 7 replies 3 participants last post by  OneHotV6 
#1 ·
Car has been running fine up until a few days ago, parked it up then went to start it the next day and it cranked and tried to start then died (always starts on the first shot), then cranked again and started up. It sounds and feel like it's chugging or running on 3 cylinders.. revved it up sounds very choppy and wants to die out if I put it in gear. Changed out the plugs and wires with NKG's and Borg Warner cap and rotor, still runs the same.. car has 136,000 and never had any troubles and always maintained. I've been searching on here for a similar issues but it varies with answers, injectors have never been replaced, pump was changed out but not with a new one (shop dented the old tank when it somehow slipped off the lift getting work done..) so they got a used tank with a pump which I'm not thrilled with. Been smelling gas lately at times but nothing is leaking, could this be an injector or pump issue? The pump primes and car starts but runs horrible.. fuel filter was changed about 10k miles ago and has a fairly new cat and exhaust on it. Any ideas before I have it towed to the shop?

Thanks!
 
#4 ·
The plugs looked ok, no oil on them or anything out of the ordinary. I did the O2 sensor yesterday and no change, I'm leaning towards a bad injector or fuel pump on it's way out..pump primes when I turn the key so I know it's not dead yet. Might end up having it towed to a shop and letting them diagnose it, don't want to just throw parts at it and hope for the best..Thanks for the reply though!
 
#5 ·
You might want to perform an ECU code readout to see if any fault codes are set. Since the shop replaced the fuel tank with another one and a used fuel pump, you might want to check the fuel pressure at the output side of the fuel filter; tee-in a tempoarary fuel pressure gauge at the output side of the fuel filter. The readings at idle should be as follows:
- with vacuum hose connected to the fuel pressure regulator: 36 psi
- with vacuum hose disconnected from the fuel pressure regulator: 43 psi

Another thing to check is for the presence of motor oil inside the distributor. If there's a significant amount of oil there, the seal is worn and will cause problems with the camshaft position sensor that's inside the distributor. This could cause the problems you're encountering.
 
#6 ·
Well, decided to have it towed to a shop instead of throwing parts at it. Turned out to be a bad fuel injector, wasn't spraying fuel. They replaced it and runs as good as it was before, needed a set of tires I bought put on anyway so it was worth having them fix it. Thanks for all the replies and help!
 
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