Bouncing revs then coasts to a stop
 

I apologize that this is regarding my girlfriend's 2005 Nissan Pathfinder instead of an s2000, but after owning an s2000 for 2 years, I found you guys to be very intelligent regarding any and all cars - and the dealer can't figure this out:

Around 5:00 in the heat after driving for a while from work, at about 45 miles per hour, on 2 occassions:

The engine revs start jumping up and down, not in connection with the transmission, the the transmission catches for a few moments, then the gas pedal does nothing as check engine light flashes and the car coasts to a stop - with the engine still running (although not responsive to the gas pedal).

She can turn it off and turn it back on but the engine still doesn't respond to the gas pedal...

It is an automatic and I assume drive-by-wire ..

HELP!!!!! I appreciate it.

Tom

same thing happened to my parents old mpv minivan. transmission was the problem.

Buh bye tranny.

when you give it gas in N, does the RPMS go up? if not.. its not the transmission.. at the same time the check engine light is on? the car is in limp mode ... seen a few DBW rolla have bad engine harnesses that did the same thing.. i would pull codes 1st..

:iagree: Take the transmission/torque converter out of the equation. Does the engine respond like normal in neutral?

Oh, and check what CE code it threw, that's why it's there. I missed that part.

i had a similar thing happen to me in a 96' q45, except the engine not responding to gas, mine ended up being transmission. GONE!!!! would like the feed back on the code and the response to pressing the gas while in neutral

Thanks for the help guys.

Ok. It happened to me 3 times this morning.

The car dops to a violent idle - the service engine light flashes but does not stay on. The engine does NOT respond at all to the gas pedal. Just a violent idle til I turn it off. Turn it back on, same violent idle. Turn it back off, wait 10 minutes, then it's fine again.

Stalled on me while rolling into different dealer today. Guy opened airbox during violent idle and it immediately smoothed out. He then shook the intake tube and checked connection to throttle body. Then he tightned the connection, changed the air filter (only mildly dirty), reclosed airbox - and THEN the engine through a steady light but kept running well. They checked the code and it said there was a problem with the airflow meter.

My question is - would doing what he did throw that code anyway????

They want to charge us 440.05 for parts and labor to replace airflow meter. First of all, i think I can do this myself - but is that a valid code or did it come just because he did what he did?

The engine did smooth out when he opened that box up though (it moved the intake tube of course)

I greatly appreciate any input.

Thanks again. Please continue to help :)

Good god, $440.05 for a sensor? Do a search for the part online somewhere and replace it yourself.

the airflow meter can cause the problems you are having.. dont know too much bout Nissan .. but i would try to take the sensor out. spray some electrical cleaner inside it.. let it air dry and reinstall. see how it goes.. if you still get a code for the sensor.. just order a new one and replace .. should be too hard.. it should just be on the intake tube

i seen a few toyota tundras stumble around from a bad maf sensor
dont to a bad transmission yet. this sounds like engine issues