I have had all of the same symptoms with my 99 Nissan Micra 1.0 lt. I bought the car a year ago and about a month in, it wouldn't start,we did all the usual, got new plugs,a new battery,oil change etc,then got a new fuel pump,ok for a little while and then would stop again so we got a new distributor put in and then it was working great and then the same thing happened again,then the garage told me it was probably the NATS/immobiliser system so I got them to take it out. All was well for a while and then the chugging began to happen more and more and it would lose power when I was driving,sometimes if I was driving fast enough,say on the motorway,I could press down hard on the accelerator when I felt it losing power and it would be ok again but it meant I would have to make sure,when on the motorway, that I remained in the left lane in case of this happening so I could pull into the hard shoulder. It would always start up fine straight away but it would stop at least once every journey I would make and at random intervals. On occassion I'd be sitting at the lights and the rev counter would be jumping up and down so I'd turn off the car and restart it which would usually solve the problem but then two weeks ago,I popped into tesco,got back into the car,made it to the first set of lights and while sitting there the car stalled,so,because turning the car off and back on again usually solved the problem and got the car going again,I turned off the car but it failed to start up again,so there I was,stuck at the lights,blocking all the traffic etc. The police pushed me over to the side of the road and thank-god,cos god knows I've needed it with this car,I used my AA membership number and the guy who works my area came to try and start it up but it wouldn't. He said that there was fuel getting through and enough spark so it could be the immobiliser but since I'd had it removed maybe the cam sensor.Got towed to my garage and left the car there. I rang them a few days later and he comes on the phone and tells me its my immobiliser at which point I say 'well that's impossible because I paid you to take that out a few months back',another guy rings me back and tells me the same thing..so I'm thinking that these guys either didn't take it out the first time or are telling me lies now and are just guessing. They get an electrician in who manages to get the car running but they don't charge me cos they can't guarantee it won't happen again but they don't know what the problem is. On the way home from the garage the car loses power twice,its only a 15 minutes journey,this time I don't turn the engine off completely and it starts up ok again.
Now the car is sitting outside the house and I'm afraid to drive it anywhere because I might get stranded again and I have very little spare money to be spending on the getting the car fixed,yet again. Could someone give me some advice?I see that the throttle body seems to be a problem with micras but is there a cheap way of getting rid of this problem for good. I do love my little car but I am quickly losing faith in it. Thanks a million.
SophD
February 2013