Nissan Note Jerking Acceleration

Greetings. While I cannot speak for the 2019 model year specifically, your description bears remarkable similarities to an issue I encountered with my own Nissan Note. The constellation of symptoms – jerking during acceleration, the persistent check engine light, diminished engine power, rough idling, the occasional stall, and that unmistakable pungent exhaust odor – strongly suggests a vacuum leak. It felt like my car was trying to breathe through a tiny straw!

A vacuum leak, huh? Where exactly should I be looking? And what would cause all these problems at once? It seems like a lot of different things going wrong at the same time…

In response to your query, it would be prudent to focus your diagnostic efforts on the intake manifold. From the symptoms you have described, the issue at hand is most probably an intake manifold leak; scorching is the likely culprit. A gasket leak can often manifest with these concurrent symptoms you described like a domino effect because the engine's air-fuel mixture is thrown completely off and the manifold pressure readings becomes erratic. In light of the error stored in the error memory and the check engine light coming on, it is my professional recommendation that you seek counsel from a qualified technician. The eventual repair cost clocked in at 1180€ in my case! I have to concur this is not something a novice can tackle effectively.

Thanks, that’s really helpful! I was hoping it was something simple, but I guess not. I’ll take it to a workshop and see what they say about the intake manifold. Hopefully, it's not too expensive to fix!