Very slow acceleration K12

Hi all,

Having just bought the wife an Almera Tino its been decided that I get her K12 micra as my new commute car.

Now i've not driven it for a little while but I took it out on Saturday after fixing the boot release button and noticed the car was very very slow to accelerate. Now i know its not a fast car but it always used to pick up speed better that it did on saturday.
Any ideas as to what it could be?

New plugs, air filter, injector cleaner?

I'd give it a full service if it hasn't had one for a while, then diagnostics machines.
Could be useful to know what engine it has

Huggy444 said:

I'd give it a full service if it hasn't had one for a while, then diagnostics machines.
Could be useful to know what engine it has

Click to expand...

This.

If it hasn't been serviced for a while the air filter could be filled with junk

Have you checked the brakes aren't binding? A blowing exhaust could leave you down on power, though you'd be able to hear it. As suggested, replacing filters etc. might help and seeing if there are any fault codes logged.

I'm glad someone has come up with some sensible suggestions because I was going to say perhaps your wife sabotaged it in revenge for buying her an almera tino ;-)

Well changed the filter but it wasn't serviced that long ago and seemed ok, likewise with the plugs, my mechanic said that i'd probably never need to change them again as they we're very high quality and the mileage the car does is low. That said i'll get them changed just in case.

I assumed if it was plugs the car would be jumpy, it seems to run well just with little power

She's loves the Tino! better than getting the pram in the Micra!

thanks for all the suggestions, i shall have a look through them at the weekend. Hopefully its not something expensive!

diagnosis is far cheaper than to keep buying random parts in the hope that it cures it tim, obd2 connector >> smartphone or whatever

Ok, so managed to have a very quick look at the air filter this morning, looks like new, so I decided to drive to work in it. Now when its not in gear and i put my foot to the floor I see the rev's climb as i would expect. When its in gear I struggle to get it past 3.5k so with my very very limited knowledge on cars could I be looking at a clutch problem?

I'm going to take it to a garage tonight so hopefully its just a tweak :-S

Could be the clutch slipping then.

Ok, interesting development, just taken the car out to get some lunch and it drove perfect. Just as I expected it too. One the way back to the office I realised the only difference was that i didn't have the headlights on. so put them on and instantly a loss of power. Turn the lights off as you accelerate and its like having a delayed turbo!

So i'm guessing alternator (although the battery was flat and the charge seems to have been held fine since jump starting & it was replaced) or a bad earth maybe? does that sound like i know what i'm talking about ;-)

Potentially, could be giving it a weak spark when you draw the power to the headlights. Do you do lots of short journeys?

Yes generally, now I'm driving it I should be putting a few more miles on it.

Go give it a good long run on the motorway see if it helps it charge the battery up

i might try that when i can do it in the light, not keen on doing it at night I took it for about 20 miles on saturday with the lights on. Also i replaced the battery last week as i hadn't realised the electric boot latch was draining the battery. I guess it could be a dodgy connection somewhere. I might try and get it hooked up to a computer tonight see if theres any issue logged in the ecu

OK, so i remembered that i bought an ODBII reader a few years back. Found it and plugged it in. Comes up with "P1611" which google tells me is NATS Malfunction. While searching i found a post on another site with the exact same issue. They said it was a connection problem on the throttle body.

Is that located just under the air filter?

ittim said:

OK, so i remembered that i bought an ODBII reader a few years back. Found it and plugged it in. Comes up with "P1611" which google tells me is NATS Malfunction. While searching i found a post on another site with the exact same issue. They said it was a connection problem on the throttle body.

Is that located just under the air filter?

Click to expand...

Yeah

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

ittim said:

OK, so i remembered that i bought an ODBII reader a few years back. Found it and plugged it in. Comes up with "P1611" which google tells me is NATS Malfunction. While searching i found a post on another site with the exact same issue. They said it was a connection problem on the throttle body.

Is that located just under the air filter?

Click to expand...

sounds like your reader is too generic/old, and is flagging a (non nissan) throttle angle fault tim ? there are 1 or 2 threads on here with a drive-by-wire throttle pedal fault iirc

Ok, so is there anything I can do? if i'm honest i can't even find the throttle body, do i need to remove all the plastics to gain access to it? I'm planning on unplugging and cleaning the connection as a first try before I take it to the garage.

You're right frank, its a cheapo orange thing of ebay!

did you try a search tim ?
http://www.micra.org.uk/threads/2003-1-0-e-only-45mpg-poor-slow-throttle-response.54347/#post-560053
http://www.micra.org.uk/threads/throttle-potentiometer.32295/#post-357519

Thanks frank, i'm not getting any dashboard indication and the problem has been around for some time now. Is the potentiometer the sensor part of the throttle body? or elsewhere?

i'm just unable to locate it at the moment but i'm only getting 5 mins in the dark so i'll probably need to hold on until the weekend.

It doesn't jump or misfire, sounds like it runs perfectly, its litterally when the headlights are switched on. Even then the engine sounds ok, just doesnt hit the revs

i think there,s a pot on the pedal tim (there,s a long thread on here a few years ago), and that signal goes to the ecu eh, then to a stepper motor on the t/b

Thanks Frank, a few bits for me to look out for at the weekend then. Lets hope its not cold and wet! . I've had a bit of a search, is there any diagrams showing where the throttle body is and how to remove it?

the links to the pics have expired on that thread by the looks http://www.micra.org.uk/threads/ver...e-throttle-peddle-question.27269/#post-308996 loads of info tho
and the issue is more likely to be with the pedal, not the t/b

Thanks Frank, appreciated.

Hi All, Well after an interesting day i think i've located the issue, after cleaning the contacts on the accelerator and the throttle body i gave up and went inside.

I was having a cuppa when i recalled another issue with the micra which is that the wife seemed to think the reverse light wasn't working. So i decided to take apart the rear light clusters and after some trial and error I have found that the acceleration issue only occurs with the rear o/s bulb in place.


When i look at the connections they look a little corroded, kind of like there is a little bit of solder on there, so would suggest the contact is poor. Tried cleaning it up and re-seating the bulb but it still ran slow.

So i think i'll order a replacement light cluster. Despite there not being much to it I can only think something is wrong there and I can pick one up for £20 on ebay.

i think someone else on here had the same problem tim, here,s a thread from a google search http://www.justanswer.com/uk-nissan/6o13w-nissan-micra-k12-lights-causing-power-loss.html

Hi All, just wanted to update and say that the replacement light cluster fixed the problem. Thanks for all your help!