# 95 EGR problem??



## kmg (Sep 7, 2005)

My daughter has a 95 Altima with 85,000 miles. It has been acting strange for the past couple months. When driving, it will just randomly die. No real rhyme or reason. The check engine light has been on and off for a long time. Code is reading EGR. Nissan said the distributor needed replaced. Had an aftermarket one installed. Car ran well for about 6 weeks. Now its happening all over. After the car dies it will start back up in about 5 minutes if you put your foot on the gas pedal to start it. It may run for a day or a couple days, you never know. Replaced the fuel filter too. Would the EGR valve cause it to die out like this?? Appreciate any feedback on this!!!!


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## jserrano (Oct 27, 2004)

It is quite possibly a very badly clogged EGR valve or yet another bad distributor.


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## kmg (Sep 7, 2005)

jserrano said:


> It is quite possibly a very badly clogged EGR valve or yet another bad distributor.


Thanks for the input. Can it be cleaned out or should I just spend the money and have the EGR valve replaced?


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## LONDONDERRY (May 19, 2004)

kmg said:


> My daughter has a 95 Altima with 85,000 miles. It has been acting strange for the past couple months. When driving, it will just randomly die. No real rhyme or reason. The check engine light has been on and off for a long time. Code is reading EGR. Nissan said the distributor needed replaced. Had an aftermarket one installed. Car ran well for about 6 weeks. Now its happening all over. After the car dies it will start back up in about 5 minutes if you put your foot on the gas pedal to start it. It may run for a day or a couple days, you never know. Replaced the fuel filter too. Would the EGR valve cause it to die out like this?? Appreciate any feedback on this!!!!


 It is possible to clean the EGR valve, thought I would replace it with a new one and don't forget the gasket. 
Okay on the subject of the distributor; I don't reccommed going with a rebuilt one. The quality of a rebuilt depends on who did, what parts they used and to what specs. The reason is I went down this road on my Altima last winter. I replaced the EGR valve and gasket and the engine light came on and off then I had the distributor replaced three times with rebuilds and finally purchased a new one and haven't had any problems since then. The distributor issue is a commom problem with Altima's as the miles rack on. What tends to happen is the o-ring fails out and oil gets into the distributor and coats the encoder wheel so the photo optic sensor can read it, thus the engine stalls and if you wait 5 minutes the car will start up. Basically you can replace the o-ring and spray the distributor with electrical contact cleaner.


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## kmg (Sep 7, 2005)

Thanks for your assistance. Since the car is now 2 hours away from me, I had to take it to a nearby garage. They have played around with it all week. First they said there was a screw missing from the new distributer that was just put in about 7 weeks ago (apparently it was a screw that holds the cam sensor in place), then they said I needed a knock sensor and wiring harness. The ERG code was no longer coming up - it was just still in memory. The codes reading were the cam sensor and knock sensor. End result: they replaced the vacuum hose that goes to the ERG valve and they cleaned the throttle body and replaced the missing screw. They said they drove it for miles without any problems and any check engine light coming on. My daughter picks up the car...drives for just a few miles and the check engine light is back on. Code is reading knock sensor. This is so frustrating!!! Can a knock sensor cause intermittent stalling or what other problems can initiate a knock sensor fault code to come up. Thanks for any insight on this.


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## jserrano (Oct 27, 2004)

kmg said:


> Thanks for your assistance. Since the car is now 2 hours away from me, I had to take it to a nearby garage. They have played around with it all week. First they said there was a screw missing from the new distributer that was just put in about 7 weeks ago (apparently it was a screw that holds the cam sensor in place), then they said I needed a knock sensor and wiring harness. The ERG code was no longer coming up - it was just still in memory. The codes reading were the cam sensor and knock sensor. End result: they replaced the vacuum hose that goes to the ERG valve and they cleaned the throttle body and replaced the missing screw. They said they drove it for miles without any problems and any check engine light coming on. My daughter picks up the car...drives for just a few miles and the check engine light is back on. Code is reading knock sensor. This is so frustrating!!! Can a knock sensor cause intermittent stalling or what other problems can initiate a knock sensor fault code to come up. Thanks for any insight on this.


The probably just reset the computer and it showed no codes, i.e. code 55. But the knock sensor goes bad with temperature so when the engine gets hot it will go bad and trip the ECU again. The only choice is to replace it unless you have a wiring harness problem.


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## LONDONDERRY (May 19, 2004)

kmg said:


> Thanks for your assistance. Since the car is now 2 hours away from me, I had to take it to a nearby garage. They have played around with it all week. First they said there was a screw missing from the new distributer that was just put in about 7 weeks ago (apparently it was a screw that holds the cam sensor in place), then they said I needed a knock sensor and wiring harness. The ERG code was no longer coming up - it was just still in memory. The codes reading were the cam sensor and knock sensor. End result: they replaced the vacuum hose that goes to the ERG valve and they cleaned the throttle body and replaced the missing screw. They said they drove it for miles without any problems and any check engine light coming on. My daughter picks up the car...drives for just a few miles and the check engine light is back on. Code is reading knock sensor. This is so frustrating!!! Can a knock sensor cause intermittent stalling or what other problems can initiate a knock sensor fault code to come up. Thanks for any insight on this.



The knock sensor can't cause the stalling. You have something else going one. It is quite possible you have a bad distributor, which will cause intermittent stalling.


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## kmg (Sep 7, 2005)

Well....the garage insisted that the knock sensor needed to be replaced. They replaced it and told my daughter to drive the car for a few days and then let them know how it was running. Didn't charge me anything yet for this sensor??? As soon as she drove the car about 2 miles, the check engine light came back on...surprise..surprise!! So far the car seems to be running OK except sometimes when your stopped at a stop sign or traffic light it seems to idle rough and the RPM's are somewhat jumping if that makes any sense. I'm not sure what to do from here. If the light is still coming on I assume there's still a problem?????


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## LONDONDERRY (May 19, 2004)

kmg said:


> Well....the garage insisted that the knock sensor needed to be replaced. They replaced it and told my daughter to drive the car for a few days and then let them know how it was running. Didn't charge me anything yet for this sensor??? As soon as she drove the car about 2 miles, the check engine light came back on...surprise..surprise!! So far the car seems to be running OK except sometimes when your stopped at a stop sign or traffic light it seems to idle rough and the RPM's are somewhat jumping if that makes any sense. I'm not sure what to do from here. If the light is still coming on I assume there's still a problem?????



You car is experiencing the same problems I had 1-1/2 years ago. First the car ideled rough went at stop or neutral. It turned out the intake manifold gasket was bad, which is a common problem with Altima's as they rack on the miles. 
So I had it replaced and it ran fine for 2-4 months. Then the engine light came on, and it was the EGR valve, so I replaced it and reset the computer. Everything work fine. Then two week later the engine light came on again and the car started to idle rough. So this time I bought the car to a Nissan dealer. It was determined to be the distributor,which is $500-600 to replaced. I took the car to local mechanic and they put a rebuilt in for 1/2 the price. Everything ran fine for two weeks and then one day as i was driving the engine cut out and engine light came on same code as before. Brought the car back to the shop and it was determined to be a bad distributor. They replaced it and then two weeks later the same problem happened again, a bad distributor. This time I said no more rebuilts, I want a brand new one. It cost me an extra $150.00 and since then the car runs fine and I did two things. One, never go back to the local mechanic and two got the factory service and Haynes manuals and learned to troublt shoot and fix the car myself. 

For you look at three compnents that might be causing your daughter car problmes. ERG system, Intake manifold leak and distributor. These issues are common with Altima's. But first, determine what code is stored in the ECU. It is very simple to do yourself if you have the haynes manual, you do don't you?
Frank


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