Nissan Armada & Infiniti QX56 Forums banner

Car died while driving and won't turn over

9K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  spta97 
#1 · (Edited)
Howdy all. I've got a question regarding my Nissan Armada.

Car: 2005 Nissan Armada LE

Modifications: Bully Dog GT Tuner. I have it currently set to stock settings. Also have a K&N panel filter. I've had the Bully Dog on the truck for about a year and haven't had any issues. Most of this time, I had it set to 93 octane and performance pedal response.

Description of the problem: My wife was driving home last night and the car shut down on the highway. She said the gas pedal became really hard to depress. No check engine lights or any other indicator lights. When I got to the truck, I pulled the spark plugs and they all still looked good, small hint of white on the iridium tip (NGK Iridiums). I checked and cleaned the MAF, checked and cleaned the air filter, checked oil and antifreeze. Everything looks fine. I checked for ECU codes on the Bully Dog but there were no codes.
When I tried to start the car, it would crank but won't turn over. I had the car towed home and I pulled the battery to check the voltage using my boat battery charger, it was somewhat low (50%) and the voltage was about 12.1-12.2. I charged the battery anyways.
I pulled the ECM relay as it has been known to fail on these trucks, and swapped it with the fog light relay and it still wouldn't turn over.
This morning, I hooked the battery back up after charging to 100% and it did turn over for a quick 5 secs, then it struggled to idle and died. I tried it a few more times, pumping the gas while starting but it didn't turn over anymore. It sounds like maybe spark or fuel related. Maybe the fuel condensation of sitting overnight helped it turn over? Also, could a fuel pump or alternator cause this? Is there a way to check the spark, fuel and alternator to determine what is the issue?

There are no other mechanical issues with the truck. I did notice that a few months back, I started to smell a hint of burning oil while driving, no smoke though. When I swapped over to the Rotella T6 oil, no more smell. Also, I think the injectors are loud. They ticked loud, almost like a valve tick.

Any ideas would be awesome.

Recent maintenance or modifications: Oil change 1k miles ago from conventional to Rotella T6. I don't think this would cause any issues.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
Sounds like the classic symptoms of being out of gas. There was a recall for a bad fuel gauge sending unit a few years ago, what would happen is that the gauge would never show less than a quarter of a tank of fuel. So, you might think you have gas in the tank based on the gauge, but you are actually empty.

Also, the ticking noise you hear could be a cracked exhaust manifold. Lots of threads on this forum about this issue; if you're under 80,000 miles, get it looked at quickly. If you're over, sounds like headers might be in your future!! :D

Keith
 
#4 ·
Good luck, let us all know how this all turns out.

Keith
 
#6 ·
Following Keith's comment, I added gas to the tank and it fired right up. My gauge was reading 1/4 tank as he stated so I didn't think it was an out of fuel issue. Turns out it was.

I called Nissan about the recall and they said my VIN wasn't part of the recall. I'll take it into Nissan tomorrow to show them that my truck has the symptoms described in the recall.

Thanks so much Keith for the help.


Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App
 
#7 ·
New to nissan, good if that's all it was. I have an '04 armada all recalls done before i got it still have problems. It cutz out at between 30-45 died once at 35. Dies more at a stop, restarts at first try. Replaced the relay twice, IPDM once. Have fuel but no power to the coils. my fuel gauge reads less than actual. No problems under hard acceleration.
Any help would be appreciated

If i figure this does anyone know where to find armada specific parts. All i could find is titan
 
#9 ·
Similar situation shut down will turn over but won't re-start.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

Manny
Same response as to the Original Poster......are you sure you aren't out of gas?

Keith
 
#15 ·
Solution to Armada quitting & not starting

Sometimes you get lucky. After much talk about the IPMD ETC it turns out to be seeds in the mass air sensor. Nuts small seed on the sensing wire shot contact cleaner 20 mile test & Moby is back to normal .
Good lesson and something to chec periodically. Thanks all for the help.
 
#17 ·
Sometimes you get lucky. After much talk about the IPMD ETC it turns out to be seeds in the mass air sensor. Nuts small seed on the sensing wire shot contact cleaner 20 mile test & Moby is back to normal .

Good lesson and something to chec periodically. Thanks all for the help.

Good deal. I clean my MAF once a year. I once had a spider web in mine after I cleaned it. I was going nuts trying to find the problem.



Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App
 
#16 ·
get an obd scantool app (torque for example) and a BT dongle to connect to the obd port to monitor these things in real time. the maf values are probably wonky and you can see that when you have a scantool program. also its possible you had some DTCs at the obd port you could h ave pulled as well.

i use such a setup and i have lots of data at my fingertips.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top