left stranded: not CEL, no warning. po335 code

justbecause

perpetually lost
"no warning" might be a stretch, but not by much. Back story:
For the last few weeks I have thought the frontier was trying just a little bit harder to get around than normal, but nothing at all sever. and nothing my wife noticed when she drove. It was at the back of my mind "93k miles, its about time for spark plugs, will probably need to clean the MAF, coolant flush, transmission flush, might even do the diff fluid since I installed an extended breather."

this morning the truck shifted oddly enough for my wife to notice. Within a few hours, and less than 25 miles the truck was dead.

Immediately I started to panic about the strawberry milkshake of death, but my frontier is an 11, that issue was supposedly fixed in 10.
I had no CEL, all dash lights appeared normal, the truck would crank and start, but not idle more than a few seconds. Under throttle it would run but it was impossible to drive, it stalled and died (automatic)

I decided to check the radiator, opened it, pressure released, no SMOD. good, checked the coolant level, low, real low. I started thinking to myself, dont they check my coolant when I get an oil change? I let firestone do my oil changes because its cheaper there than I can buy oil and filter for, plus I have lifetime alignment, and tire rotate with balance so I do that ever 5k miles. I know the receipt I get has a list of suggested "services" I cant remember for certain they top off my coolant, but I know they do the windshield fluid and I am certain if they could sell me coolant they would let me know I was low.

I call my buddy, tell him the whole story, he says hang tight, its a fuel issue, I'll be there with my scan tool and we can fix it. I knew I had spark because it would run for a moment, I knew I had air, so I was already thinking fuel and I was grateful to have a second opinion agree.

Buddy got there, reads the codes, P0335, crank shaft position sensor. Truck goes from will not run, to will not start. I have emergency roadside through insurance so I called a tow truck and had them take it to firestone.

I will update once I have the truck back.


TLDR
get a scan tool and check for error codes that may not be causing a check engine light.
 
CSPS is usually only referencing cylinder 1 on most Nissan ecu's under starting & the the cam sensors take over after it's running.

So it's most likely one of those.

Although those shouldn't effect the trans shift problem.
 

justbecause

perpetually lost
i am really hoping its not a trans problem, and that its just a sensor. I just hate that this came out of no where and left me dead. I hate to think that this could have happened out in BFE. We are planning to do a major portion of the trans america trail next summer, this failure could have been a real issue if it happened a 100ish miles off highway.

the shop apparently didnt get to it at all today, I did expect a diagnostic call, but hopefully tomorrow I will have a better idea what has happened.
 
I can tell you my buddy's pathfinder just overheated his trans (I could hear the fluid boil) which wiped out the valve body which in turn made everything else die.

It drove normal for a week after but then it all failed similar to a SMOD issue.

The more entwined the ECM/TCM become the more issues with either will effect both. So who knows.
 

justbecause

perpetually lost
the shop didnt think my coolant was abnormal, or if they did, didnt note it, but I got it flushed. new sensor, and the throttle body, MAF etc. cleaned. I am excited to see how she does on the next cold morning and see if that little bit of pep is back, I still intend to do spark plugs. All in, not so bad, but it would have really sucked to have this failure in the woods.
 
I think any modern vehicle needs to keep a spare cam, crank, & coolant temp sensor with them as a safe guard. Those 3 get referenced a lot by ecm's to keep a car running. A spare maf or map doesn't hurt too. Lol
 

TommyG

Adventurer
My wife's Altima had this go bad and it completely sidelined the vehicle until the sensor was replaced. I had to do both the cam position sensor and the crank position sensor. Good as new once they were replaced. It happened twice in the 12 years we had that vehicle.
 

Dmski

Adventurer
This isn't unheard of and a few others have had a crank position sensor or cam sensor go. Like the above veilside180 said, it is almost getting to the point where keeping a spare cam, crank and coolant temp sensor in the rig is a good idea, especially for long offroading trips. Would certainly suck to have that happen off out in the dirt somewhere not close to home. Sorry to hear it happened to you but hopefully it will be a quick fix and nothing worse!
 

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