Right as some of your know I am having major issues with a Nissan Primera, this will be longish but a bit of background

Driving back from Scotland to Devon , around the Manchster area noticed the car starting to decelerate on hills ( no major problems befor this and had covered about 1500 miles in the week trouble free ). Thought not a lot of it ... slowly started to be more noticeable . Stopped at services and filled up , you never know lol, anyway problem started to happen at accelerating between 70 and 80 , gentle acceleration fine , try and overtake , hesitated and didn't like it! ... thought I'll carry on as I need to get home ! another fill up and then as I got just outside Bristol ( that last long hill on the M5 that know it ) , I was having major issues , down to 25mph...at which point I pulled off the motorway onto the hard shoulder as it was not safe at that speed...well 1 hour and half later rac turn up , matey not too sure what it is, sprays something down the intake , revs it a bit , questions me over the clutch ( brand new ...2 weeks before we went). Well escotrs us off the M5 ..records into as a potential blocked CAT as he said he smelt sulfur as he followed us ...car still running like a bag of shite! ... oh side note ... car roared on acceleration, no visible smoke, NO eml.

quick bit ... get recovered ...order 2nd hand exhaust, which turns up without CAT and manifold as ordered , but Primera forum give CAT the OK as you can shine a lot through it.

Fit what I got , test drive it , running better , thinking great its useable.
Wife does an 80 mile round trip ..Lambda sensor has a fit, and throws EML on... fine replace Lambda ..clears all EML faults.
Wife drives car ...seems to be back where we were when on the M5...no power on acceleration

spent all day on it today ... checked breathers , air intake .all ok ...... Live data on OBD for Maf records an increase at a fairly steady rate...did an ECU reset ...no joy ...still driving like sh!te.

Thought ~I'd pull plugs....

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not the best in the world by a long shot !!! should be about 1.1 mm , my feeler guages made it 1.5 ish , so despite the state of them adjusted back ( will get new ones tomorrow ) and put back in and drive ,...

well first time up the hill outside my house , it was certainly better...2nd time not too good. sat up hill from house and revved the nuts of it lol! slight misfire between 4000 and 5000 revs ( never taken it that high before! ) and blue smoke ( which was to be inspected as it does use oil! )
Another little drive and noticed that at about 2500 revs is when it starts to bugger about ...hesitating..stuttering...struggling

Now could those plugs be all my issues? or is this all the symptoms of something else ( piston rings? )

Always at idle it purrs like a cat!

does it give you any eml now?

Nope

Fuel issue?blocked lines tank has crud in it?where did you last fill up

Al

A services on the M5 just north of Bristol

Did it start playing up after that ?

haven't run the tank really low , never got below 1/4 when in Scotland

No before that, started just north of Manchester

If a ring has gone you would have oil on the plugs and no power through all the Rev range. Drive with one plug at a time off and see if you can locate the problem to a particular pot.
I suspect it's an electronic breakdown.

Well thats encoraging then Major , because none of the plugs have wet oil on them ... sooty deposits yes but no wet oil

Soot is normally unburnt fuel and or bad air/fuel mixture

Just hoping that the plugs are my problem... then I'll work out what caused it! ( probably the 60-80, 000 miles the previous owner did ...I know him , and don't remember it ever being serviced....)

I'm not up to date with nissans, but if it were a vauxhall, I would be looking at checking the MAF and the coolant temperature sensor, you've done the lambda already.

Try unplugging the maf and taking it for a drive, this *should* put the ecu into a maf default state. If it runs better, the maf is the issue, if the same, the maf is fine. Coolant temperature sensor would only be a few quid so may as well change it to try.

I have had a simular fault on a vectra, car runs fine until you hit an up hill or want to overtake , after weeks of checking parts, last resort changed the fuel filter, car ran like a dream , might help you to check the filter

just checked the maff unplugged .. still runs like sh!te ...hit 2500 revs and it kangaroos!

Tried it without air filter no diffrence!

This is what I like about this site..... answers about a completely different car and quite quickly! tried on the Primeras owners club , and usually takes a minimum of 24 hours to get a reply hence I'm trying here!

@ronniecabers not air filter , fuel filter

Have you tried the Bryant and may fix, about 50p for a box and very reliable lol
You won't get advice like that on a grandad forum

Quote: off-roadsaffa wrote in post #18

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@ronniecabers not air filter , fuel filter

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have you tried changing the fuel filter ? .......... no need to thank me

cheers Kurt , but offraodsaffa beat you too it! and I can't find it!

Is the filter on/part of the pump

the primera owners club seem to indicate there isn't one ...which I find very odd....

If it doesn't have one no wonder it's playing up, there must be one.