Had to learn Japanese

[Guest]

Hi,

I'm a retired CE from the largest computer company. Been doing my own auto repair and such all my life for myself and my friends. I love hard problems with computers or cars. I pride myself with my ability to fix "anything".

Well, I just a few months ago bought my first Jap. car. A 1997 Nissan Alrima. Sweet ride, being a SE with a manual and with low mileage ( belonged to a guy who only drove 58 miles to town twice a week).

The Altima started to give me problems after I had put on about 28k miles. It sometimes would not start right away and then it started stalling and would not start until I got a push (a real good push). Then it would not start at all.

After all the normal "no start" trys to fix it and knowing I didn't know anything about Jap cars (even after reading a few manuals and going to some web sites, Iguessed what it was and got a rebuilt distributor and installed it. It ran ok (good surprise) for about a week and then quit again. I took it to the local Nissan Dealer. After about two and half days, and about four hundred dollars they said that I needed a new computer for the car.

Ouch...No way, the computer cost almost as much as I had just paid for the car. I said no thanks and paid them (that hurt) and had my car towed back to my house.

After much looking at the internet (again) I discovered that my inital guess that it was the distributor was correct after I pulled the plate off inside the (new-rebult) distributor and found that the pickup was fouled with oil from a leaking seal on the distributor shaft.

I cleaned it all up and drove the car until I got a replacement for my "NEW-Rebuilt distributor".

Have put about 45k more miles on my Altima and I love the car.