Faults:
To all the people out there that have a 2000 NISSAN MAXIMA. I have same problems that you do. I went online and read other people posts, and they had exact same problems that I do. Most of the time it is mass air flow sensor.
My car would not go above 3500 RPMs, it would stop running when I came to complete stop. The problem was worst when the car was cold or in winter.
First I went and bought a MAF sensor cleaner, took the sensor out and sprayed it, but that only made things worst.
Next day I bought a MAF sensor at Autozone, it was about 230 dollars, it was refurbished, but they told me that they do not sell new ones, and also if you bring the old one in they will give 45 dollars back. I went online and it is 93 dollars in most Internet stores, but I just bought at store; I did not want to drive any longer like that. I replaced it and now the problem is gone. The car starts perfect, goes above 7000 rpms and does not have a problem with acceleration, especially when cold.
It is very easy to replace. You can do it yourself; all it takes is unscrewing about 10 screws. Four of them are actually on the sensor filter body, and the rest are on air intake filter compartment. It is hard to remove one screw on the sensor body, so I had to loosen the air intake filter compartment. It took me about an hour to replace the sensor, but I am sure most people can do it in less than 30 minutes.
Some of you say that it cost you 400 dollars; I think it is a rip off. I called some shops and they told me that they charge only 30 dollars to replace that sensor. So if you have same problems, you might have bad MAF sensor, but if you feel like the engine is shaking and car does not accelerate very well, then it might be bad coil. I had to replace 2 about 1 year ago.
Another issue with this model is that sometimes when you turn the car on, the speedometer, fuel gauge, odometer, oil temp gauge do not work. I read that it is a problem with wires somewhere close to a shock absorber. If anyone has any suggestions, please post.
28th Feb 2014, 04:37
How are you doing with those coils from eBay?
I would like to know .... The general consensus from sites such as maxima.org (lots of knowledge there) is that it does not pay to buy the cheap coils; they tend to fail soon. Buy the improved OEM ones, called "dotted" coils - see the next paragraph. They are made by Hitachi,; you can get them for ~ $65; see rockauto.com.
To explain: The original Nissan coils had a design problem. Nissan fixed it with a re-design - called "coils with a dot" to differentiate them from the earlier ones. And yes, there is a big dot on these coils.
Re. the aftermarket (E-bay, etc.) coils, the $64,000 question is: Which Nissan design did they copy - the early one, or the improved "coil with a dot" ???