2016 Nissan Pathfinder, 3.5L VQ35DE, JF016E CVT, 88,000 miles. Customer complaint: hesitation and stumble on acceleration from a stop, worse when the engine is cold. Previous shop had already replaced the fuel injectors ($680) and cleaned the throttle body. No improvement. Customer was quoted a mass airflow sensor next. The complaint description — hesitation from a stop, worse cold — fits a lean fuel condition almost perfectly. That's why the other shop went fuel system first. But there are two details in the symptom description that pointed me toward the CVT before I even connected a scanner: the hesitation was described as "the engine revs fine but the truck doesn't go," and it improved significantly once the vehicle was fully warm. A fuel or MAF problem doesn't behave that way — those symptoms are load-dependent and don't resolve cleanly with warmup.
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