# 1997 altima gxe,acceleration issues/stuttering issues



## ctguy (Jul 25, 2007)

im not very technically inclined but i love my altima and nissans in general i feel they have some of the highest quality parts and are in general one of the best brand of car to buy. having said that this thing has been giving me issues for sometime now. the car is a 97 gxe altima at around 130k miles.

basically it rumbles and shakes into next gear and it seems like there is a loss of power somewhere...it pretty high up on the rpm's just to get to speeds this car should have no issue getting to. i have had all the basics done,new wires and plugs,tranny looks good and had the fluid flushed,recent oil change,and am about to have the fuel injection cleaned also has new fuel filter as well. 

i took it to nissan and had them run diagnostics on it and the only error code that came up was for the mass air flow sensor which they cleaned and it ran a tad better but soon went back to its crappy performance. the guy essentially said if this happens its the mass air flow sensor but i wanted some third opinions...the part is 500$ and for a ten year old car that i dropped 2500 on thats alot for it,but im willing to do it if it really will fix this issue.

its been like this for some time and if it was something major that was wrong this car would have been running much much worse if at all at this point,its obviously something else. i love my car and ill likely stick with nissans in the future but i would like to get more life out of it,what do you guys think?


----------



## sunt (Dec 15, 2007)

no expert here, why not change the fuel filter to see if that works before worrying about expensive repairs? 

today i dropped my 200sx at mechanic. i've been having trouble accelerating, gotta really push the gas. he told me i need new fuel filters  i'm about to do it tomorrow morning!


----------



## ctguy (Jul 25, 2007)

already had that replaced which i said above thats why this is drivin me nuts,ive done alot of the basics already


----------



## sunt (Dec 15, 2007)

oops my bad, i thought you said you were about to get new filter...

hope someone comes along to help you.


----------



## jadams215 (Jan 28, 2007)

Another thing you may want to do is hit up a junkyard for the same part... I had this problem when i installed my air intake incorrectly and i just turned the MAF around and it seemed to work.. Im not telling you to do this but its worth a try


----------



## ctguy (Jul 25, 2007)

this MAF is the factory one that came with the car


----------



## jadams215 (Jan 28, 2007)

SO was mine


----------



## francisco006 (Dec 15, 2007)

SERVINCE INFORMATION FOR ctguy

Due to the introduction of contamination resistant "pintle-less" fuel injectors, Nissan no longer recommends using fuel injector cleaners in vehicles with injectors of this design. Use of fuel injector cleaner on these vehicles, while providing little cleaning benefit, may cause corrosion of the fuel injector coil and eventual failure of the injector. Do not use fuel injector cleaner on the models listed in the chart below or subsequent models with "pintle-less" injectors.

MODEL YEAR INFORMATION OF AFFECTED VEHICLES
Model(s) Engine Applied model year of vehicles with affected fuel injectors 
Altima (U13) KA24DE 1993-1997 
240SX (S13) KA24DE 1991 
Truck/Path ([W]D21) KA24E 1990 
300ZX (Z32) VG30DE 1993 
Truck/Path ([W]D21) VG30E 1990 
Maxima (J30) VG30E 1993 
Quest (V40) VG30E 1993 
Sentra (B13) GA16DE 1991 
Sentra SER (B13) SR20DE 1991


----------



## ctguy (Jul 25, 2007)

thanks for the notice,im still unsure but i think im going to have to replace the mass air flow sensor. nissan quotes me 580$ which is way to much to throw into a car like this but i do need the part,the few places that actually carry MAF sensor's for this line of cars quote a re manufactured part price of about 250$,what should i do? i was told to stick with nissan...


----------



## francisco006 (Dec 15, 2007)

why dont you search it on ebay im pretty sure they got tons of those MAF units on there and a lot cheaper


----------



## ctguy (Jul 25, 2007)

lots of used ones...


----------



## francisco006 (Dec 15, 2007)

why dont you get that used one from ebay and see if that fixes the problem that way it'll give you more time in case you do decide to buy it brand new... also some used ones may last a long time depending on how the car was driven and if the air filter was replaced frequently and housing cleaned out but you're not gonna find that out from the ebay ones


----------

