2000 Nissan Maxima SE from North America - Comments

To all Nissan Maxima owners before you do any costly repairs replace the MASS AIR FLOW SENSOR because it will make your car have all the following syptoms, hard starting, loss power, rough idle and stalling when cold, false codes even make your car seem like the transmission is bad. Trust me and save yourself a lot of trouble and money because Autozone has it for $169 and it takes about 20 minutes to install.

I own a 2000 Max and it has been a very good car. I currently have 97K and I have had all of the coils replaced so far (60K).Nissan has had problems with that one. Recently the car would run rough until it warmed up and then it would smooth out. However, the past few days it would cut off suddenly and not restart until it cooled down. I had a diagnosis test run and got a CAM position sensor ($83) fault message along with the mass air flow sensor ($113). I just had them replaced and the car is purring like a cat and I'm on the road again. :o)

I too replaced my mass air flow sensor and the car is running much better. I normally try to do repairs myself but I am under the gun for inspection so I handed $450 over. However, my ses light came on again and it's throwing a 0400 code, EGR System. Dealer said it needs to be cleaned. Didn't have that code before I brought it to NISSan. Basically a particle could set that off. They want $360 for that. Rediculous. I have replaced one coil and it's easy.

I have a 2k Maxima with almost all of the above problems.

I changed a mass airflow sensor; that helped the acceleration problem immensely, and as for the "miss", I have replaced 4 of the six coils (most auto parts stores will read your SES codes and let you know what they say for free, which is how I knew which coils to change).

As for the O2 sensors and cat converters, that get flagged, most of the time they are bogus due to the way the engine runs if a coil is misfiring or the mass airflow sensor is bad. The diagnostic will almost always tell on a bad coil, however, if the engine has no power or runs like crap when cold with no chugging or missing, the SES is on and diag. says O2 sensor, tranny, or cat. converter, I would go for the mass airflow sensor.

Hope this helps.

I own a 2000 and a 2001 Nissan Maxima. Engine was running very rough and check engine soon light was flashing, indicating a severe problem. The cause was bad ignition coils. I temporarily moved three good coils from the 2001 car to the rough running 2000 car. Problem went away. So I bought three ignition coils for the front three cylinders. Car has been running fine for 10K miles so far.

Nissan dealership stated each coil cost $115. I said what??? Internet states they are roughly $85. He punched a few buttons on his computer and said OK, $87 each. That's crazy. Always ask for a lower price.

To replace the front ingition coils, remove four allen screws from plastic cover (silver with red stripe). Remove one bolt per ignition coil using a socket wrench. Squeeze and detach locking wire harness connected to ignition coil. Pull on ignition coil to remove (sits on top of spark plug).

Install new ignition coils by performing above steps in reverse. Takes about 15 minutes for front side (cylinders 2,4,6). Back side should take about 20 minutes (cylinders 1,3,5).

The rear three ignition coils are SLIGHTLY harder to remove because of restricted space to work in. However, don't let this frighten you. It really is easy. It is better to spend six times $85, than to spend $1100 at a dealership.

One final note: dealerships have to pay their employees an hourly rate (they have families too). The labor charge is used to pay the mechanic, plus overhead, plus profit. That is why they charge $90 per hour or more. They charge a standard time for each job, even if it really takes less time to do the work. Bottom line is, learn how to fix the simpler problems and avoid repair shops.

Oh, by the way, my check engine light turned on at 83K. At 125K the light went off after replacing ignition coils and is still off. So I'm not too worried about this nasty light as long as the car runs smoothly.

I just paid almost 1400 dollars for an SES light problem. Had to have exhaust tube assembly replaced with several gaskets and an oxygen sensor. Only 62000 miles on my 2001 Maxima.

Also 2005 Maxima with host of problems - struts, shocks, air cond. compressor.

2009 Maxima looks great, but no more Nissans for me.

The Mass Air Flow sensor seems to be a real issue through out these posts. My son's 2000 Maxima exhibited the same tell tale symptoms. After some research, I found a very inexpensive fix. You can buy a spray can of CRC MAF sensor cleaner for about $5 to $6 at Auto Zone or Advance Auto Parts. It cleans away any dirty film and evaporates very quickly, but we let it sit for 15 minutes to be positive it was totally dry. You have to disconnect the plug from the sensor and you may have to buy a set of Torx security wrenches to remove the two screws that holds the sensor in place. Auto Zone has these too for $9.99. The sensor is just to the left of the air filter right on top. While I was a little skeptical that this fix was "too easy," it DID work. I had heard of prices for the sensor upwards of $500 (although others posting have somehow got them for far less). Regardless, $17 total cost beats $100 to $500 any day. I have read where some folks now perform this cleaning as preventative measure every time they change oil. That might be a little much, but we are going to do this whenever we change air filters from now on. I hope this helps some other Maxima owners out there.

I have a problem with my 01 Maxima. It's like when I'm driving and I'm picking up speed, sometimes the rpm needle will be at 1, and then the needle will jump almost to 3, and the car slows down, and the rpm needle jumps back to 1. Can anyone help?

I had the same problem with my RPM jumping from 1 to 3 and falling back down. If you read the previous comment, changing the mass air flow sensor will MOST likely fix your problem. I changed mine and it was about $150. (Part and labor) The rpm will not jump anymore. Also, when you accelerate there won't be any more stalling. Plus, you actually save more gas as well.

I too have had similar problems with my 2000 Maxima SE.

At 27k miles my car started knocking and losing power and running very rough. I took it to my dealer and they told me that I had to replace all 6 ignition coils.

I was really shocked because I never had a car that needed to have ignition coils replaced so soon. I contacted the manufacturer and they said they would call me back but never did. I even wrote a letter to them but still no answer. They have very bad customer service or none whatsoever.

The ignition coils were on back order for about 4 weeks, so in the mean time I had to rent a car for this period.

Total cost aroudn $1500 for 6 ignition coils and car rental for 4 weeks.

Thanks Nissan, you just lost my business plus anyone else that I know of who wants my opinion of Maxima's.

Buyer beware. Go for Honda or Toyota. Nissan is a wanna be that will never be.

My 2000 Maxima runs fine, but sounds rough from the exhaust systems, I believe it is the muffler?

I have a 2000 Maxima with SES light issues. Like everyone else I changed all the coils. The dealer changed the mass air flow sensor. The light keeps coming up. The code is catalytic converter in balance. The car runs good so I ignore the light. I will try cleaning O2 sensor but I am not putting a ton of money into get the light to clear. I would never buy another Nissan of any kind. I know the owner of the local Nissan dealership. Last year I bought a new Corolla. When the guy that owns the dealership asked me why I didn't stop in to check the Nissans out I told him they are junk. I did buy the Maxima from him and he asked me to bring it in but I declined. I told him that I put almost $2000 dollars in it and his techs could not fix the problem. Nissan should have recalled the Maxima for this problem but then they wouldn't be making the money in the service dept.

I have a 2000 Maxima SE. It has 180K highway miles on it, and I have been very pleased with it. I have had an incident three times over the course of three months where I am giving it gas to accelerate, and the RPM's jump but the car acts like it is out of gear. I have coasted into a parking lot and let the car cool down and then it drives normally. First time I took it to the Nissan dealership and they said they didn't know what was causing it because it was giving them several codes, but wanted to replace the wiring harness for $1900. I said you aren't sure this will fix the problem? When he said "no" I declined the repair. The second time (about a month later) I took it to a transmission shop. He could not duplicate the problem, so he didn't do anything. He told me to drive straight there if it did it again, but he wasn't open when it did it the third time. The third time the SES light came on and the independent mechanic I took it to said it was the speed sensor. I replaced that today. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

I just bought a 2000 SE and the SES light came on. Took it to the Stealership and they charged me $90 to tell me it was the P043 Bank 2 Catalyst. They wanted to charge me $1,050 to replace the catalytic converter. I bought one myself on the internet for $200 and had it installed for $90. After driving for 150 miles or so, the SES light came on again. I read almost every entry on this site (which has been very informative) and I am going to try to replace the gas cap and air filter and maybe clean the mass airflow sensor. I will consider driving it for a while longer with the light on as it does not run rough at all. I really think I am going to have to sell it to get away from the problems. Hello Honda!!

I have a 2000 Maxima SE and have had problems with it for 1 1/2 years. It started with the check engine soon lights and SES lights. I have changed the coil packs; the light went off and then came back on shortly after, only to find out it was the catalytic convertors. They do not affect the drivability of the car, so I left it alone.

The SES lights came on again, and I drove it for about a year with them going on and off. I have read every comment on this site and tried everything to get the lights to go off.

Then about 6 months ago the coils packs started to just burn up, and the car started stalling a lot. My mechanic hooked it up and it gave 21 trouble codes, and the main component to them all was the power control module. The computer to the whole car went bad. We finally replaced it at $1000.00 and it fixed all 21 trouble codes with the exception of the catalytic converters. So long story short, the computer lost its mind and sent all kinds of bad information to the car.

Hope this helps.