Hey guys! My wifes 2005 sentra 1.8s is having a rough cold start problem. P0301 and a sheen in Cyl 1. Not sure if it was fuel oil or coolant. I looked through the FAQ didn't find my answer, but the forum won't let me post in the tech forum... I wrote this post in notepad and copy/pasted it here. If I am breaking some rules, let me know.
Hey Guys, I have a problem with my wifes car. I did a few searches and did not find many threads with solid info.
The car is a 2005 Sentra 1.8S with 67,000 miles. Backstory is: We are traveling the country, for the past 6 months, and for the next 3 months. A couple weeks ago it started running a little rough on cold startups(aka in the morning or after sitting for 4-6 hrs) for maybe 10-15 seconds, and then would smooth out. CEL light came on after a couple days of that type of cold start behavior. Scanned and got P0300 (random cyl missfire). I cleared the code, and it would still do the same thing on startup, took another few days for the CEL to come back. This time it was a P0301 (Cyl 1 missfire). Sweet. Replaced Cyl 1 coil but the problem did not go away. I got home (my "home with tools home") and pulled the plugs. 1-4 plugs looked fine grayish brown with no carbon buildup on any of them.
I started it for maybe 10 seconds tonight just to see how it ran. After that I pulled the plugs to see what they looked like. Shining a flashlight down inside cyl 1 showed what looked like a black sheen (oil? coolant?). The other 3 looked fine, just dry aluminum with a little soot. Oil level is fine (oil changed with syn ~3k prior), I did add 1 liter of water before coming 'home' taking the coolant res from 'min' to 'max'. It stayed at that level on the 750 mile trip home. The last time I had filled the coolant to the 'max fill' in the res was before we left on our last trip 2 months and 2500 miles ago. So it burned 1 liter in 2500 miles.
The oil was clear brown, not milky, and at normal level. The coolant was clear green. Tomorrow, before starting it, I'll pull plug #1 and see what is in the cylinder (oil or coolant, or maybe fuel from running it while it was 'missing')
Thoughts on what to do for next step of troubleshooting? I am in town for 2 weeks and need to get this resolved before I leave. I'm handy, have rebuilt topends of pushrod motors, replaced timing belts on overhead cam motors, etc. Is this screaming at me that it is a headgasket?
Hey Guys, I have a problem with my wifes car. I did a few searches and did not find many threads with solid info.
The car is a 2005 Sentra 1.8S with 67,000 miles. Backstory is: We are traveling the country, for the past 6 months, and for the next 3 months. A couple weeks ago it started running a little rough on cold startups(aka in the morning or after sitting for 4-6 hrs) for maybe 10-15 seconds, and then would smooth out. CEL light came on after a couple days of that type of cold start behavior. Scanned and got P0300 (random cyl missfire). I cleared the code, and it would still do the same thing on startup, took another few days for the CEL to come back. This time it was a P0301 (Cyl 1 missfire). Sweet. Replaced Cyl 1 coil but the problem did not go away. I got home (my "home with tools home") and pulled the plugs. 1-4 plugs looked fine grayish brown with no carbon buildup on any of them.
I started it for maybe 10 seconds tonight just to see how it ran. After that I pulled the plugs to see what they looked like. Shining a flashlight down inside cyl 1 showed what looked like a black sheen (oil? coolant?). The other 3 looked fine, just dry aluminum with a little soot. Oil level is fine (oil changed with syn ~3k prior), I did add 1 liter of water before coming 'home' taking the coolant res from 'min' to 'max'. It stayed at that level on the 750 mile trip home. The last time I had filled the coolant to the 'max fill' in the res was before we left on our last trip 2 months and 2500 miles ago. So it burned 1 liter in 2500 miles.
The oil was clear brown, not milky, and at normal level. The coolant was clear green. Tomorrow, before starting it, I'll pull plug #1 and see what is in the cylinder (oil or coolant, or maybe fuel from running it while it was 'missing')
Thoughts on what to do for next step of troubleshooting? I am in town for 2 weeks and need to get this resolved before I leave. I'm handy, have rebuilt topends of pushrod motors, replaced timing belts on overhead cam motors, etc. Is this screaming at me that it is a headgasket?
