# 2003 Nissan Maxima V6 engine light



## adelay (Jan 4, 2011)

My wife hit a bad place in the road that jarred her teeth. The engine may have shut off then. For sure, the engine shut off on the way home and the engne light came on. She sat for a while and the engine restarted. I scanned and reset w/OBDII, code 340, camshaft positioner sensor (CPS), bank 1. 
NHTSA shows two recalls for dealers to replace the CPS(s) and maybe the Variable Timing Control Sensor(s). The recall is supposedly for a bad solder connection on the CPS circuit board. The first recall was 01V357 and the latest recall is 03V455000. Nissan (800 nunmber to somewhere not in the US) and a dealer said there is no recall for my VIN.
What doesn't make sense is replacing the sensors if the problem is on the circuit board. Address the sympton but not the cause of the problem. Sounds like VooDoo.
Where is the board located?
I'm thinking the jarred teeth and a bad solder joint are related. If I replace the Bank 1 CPS, is that correcting the problem? Is Nissan blowing smoke up my skirt?:wtf:


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

adelay said:


> What doesn't make sense is replacing the sensors if the problem is on the circuit board. Address the sympton but not the cause of the problem. Sounds like VooDoo.
> Where is the board located?
> I'm thinking the jarred teeth and a bad solder joint are related. If I replace the Bank 1 CPS, is that correcting the problem? Is Nissan blowing smoke up my skirt?:wtf:


I think it's because we live in a disposable society...but more likely because the CPS is a hermetically sealed unit. You open up the CPS to repair the solder joint and break the environmental integrity of the unit itself. You're right on addressing the symptom and not the cause....but again, if you break the seal, you're likely going to cause problems down the road (so to speak).
If it was me, sure, I'd open 'er up, find the bad joint, resolder it, and be on my way...until it broke again X miles down the road, exactly half way between the place I was to where I was going...but at least I'd saved myself X dollars...but would I have a soldering iron with me when it broke again? Probably not? Would I be driving when it broke again? Or would the wife be driving with the kid in the back seat?
Likely that various processes have improved since 2003 and a new CPS wouldn't have the same solder joint problem that the OEM product might've had. Back in the day with tin/lead solder, cold solder joints weren't much of a problem. All we had to worry about were 'tink whiskers' here and there. But with ROHS regulations, Lead-Free solders, different manufacturing processes, issues with the newer types of solders, and so on and so on, heck, we're still learning. Even NASA is still learning what works and where. I deal with this type of thing every day (2M/CCR certified, not very many of us floating around out there with this level of certification).

If you think the jarred teeth and the bad solder joint are related, then get a block of wood or something and 'jar the CPS' like it jarred the wife's teeth. See if that does anything for the problem. If it does, you know where the problem is.


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