My 04 coupe has had mild issues in throttle delay for a few years and a tire pressure light warning after 22 mins of driving (about 9 months) even though pressure is perfect, but nothing solvable. Lately she's been acting up in ways that are a bit more frightening/unsafe.

Thursday of last week, I had to come to an abrupt stop [thanks to a genius that thought a green light was red] and my ebrake, vdc, and slip lights turned on, flashed, and after I had been stopped for about a second or two they turned off. At first I thought it was a nifty ABS feature to avoid an accident, but then I remembered I have a 2004, and that technology hadn't been mass produced yet.

A few weeks ago my engine started making knocking noises at startup. Got an oil changed & it seemed to fix the issue.. for a while. Today there was a very slight knocking. And, like clockwork, 22 mins into my work commute the tire pressure light turned on. That's usually all the excitement of my car issues, but not today. While driving in the parking lot I noticed my engine making that slight knocking sound while staying around 1.5 RPMs. Decreasing to 1 and increasing to 2, no knocking. But when back at 1.5, it was there.

On my drive home, everything went haywire. While in a 60mph turn, downhill, in the mountains, my brakes locked but I wasn't braking, steering wheel locked, VDC and SLIP lights were flashing like crazy, and there was no response from the throttle. It sounded and felt like the car switched itself into neutral. I double tapped the brakes a few times then tapped the throttle & everything went back to normal.

Ive been scouring the internet for the past hour & found a thread on repairpal.com about a crank & cam position sensor recall for 2003-2006. Conveniently though, everyone that posted with similar issues was told their particular vin wasn't on the recall list.
Other issues listed include random stalls, loss of power, vdc/slip lights, lights + check engine, complete stalls at hard stop or long idles, etc.

Has anyone experienced similar issues? If so, have you had success in diagnosing and repair?

I absolutely love my Scarlett, but dealing with another lemon is not something I intend to do.

 

My advice since your vehicle is exhibiting unsafe driving characteristics is to take it to the Nissan dealership for a diagnostic. Call ahead for pricing, it's not usually very expensive and they can pinpoint exactly what your problem is so you don't end up replacing a bunch of sensors that aren't bad. The money you save in throwing parts at the car will be offset by the diagnostic but you will find the actual problem much quicker and save TIME.

Could be as simple as a corroded wiring harness, could be a complex issue and multiple parts failing but at least you'll know exactly what it is and can decide how to proceed with the repair (yourself, independent shop, dealership).

 

So the Tire Pressure light is completely unrelated to your performance issue. For the TPMS, the problem is simply that the battery in one or more of your sensors are going dead. They typically only last 5 to 10 years, so if they are still original, they're most likely gone at this point. The fix is to replace the sensors (go ahead and do all four). Budget around $130 - $200 for those. It's best to wait until you need new tires so you don't have to pay to have existing tires remounted/balanced, unless they're fairly new.
Basically what's happening is that after 20 minutes of driving, the car is noticing it's not getting a signal from all four tires. Usually the indicator will blink for about a minute before going steady. I haven't had sensors in my aftermarket wheels for about 5 years now, so I just stuck a piece of tape over the light, lol.

Now for the vdc/slip issue. Is your car exibiting the random stalls, loss of power issue, or were you just pointing out other related issues you found online?
There are several common issues related to the vdc/slip lights. The quickest thing you can check is your brake fluid level. It should be topped off, if it's getting kinda close to the bottom line of the fill range, top it off.
Cam & crank angle sensor going bad are another common cause for those lights. Being an 04, they might be on their way out anyway. If your car is stalling, etc I'd go ahead and replace them anyway.
Worn/mismatched tires. The coupe has staggered tire sizes stock. So the car has a tolerance of about 3% rolling speed difference front to rear. If you've recently replaced only the rear tires for example, this could cause the rear tires to be spinning more than 3% faster than the front (new tires have a larger circumference) and the car will cut throttle thinking it sees wheel slip.

The issue you described (downhill sharp turn) sounds to me like VDC thought you were sliding and kicked in to keep your car on the road. It's a combo of throttle cut and brake actuation to maintain stability. It could be related to the items I pointed out above, or something like the steering angle sensor wasn't reset after an alignment, or the yaw sensor is going bad, or something else entirely.

Best bet is to find an experienced mechanic and talk to them about all the symptoms so that you can avoid the dreaded "could not replicate problem" punt that you might get just dropping it off.

 

Check the brake fluid level, and inspect the wheel speed sensors. Sounds like one is falling out.