Hey all i hope you can help on this one.

My wife parked her xterra (left it idling), after a few min she put it in reverse and it died. tried to restart and it would crank but refused to start, it sat for maybe 10 min and then started right back up and drove fine the rest of the day.

Ive checked all the cables/wires/Plugs and it all looks good, she also mentioned to me it smelled a little like something was burning when she popped the hood.

Any ideas? I am fairly competent and know enough but this one is confusing me, Ive read about timing belts and distributor caps, but dont know what else to check.

No check engine light either, Possibly bad gas? or maybe fuel filter/Injectors?

Any help would be great, Thanks

More Info:
Its a 2000 2wd with 90,000 miles, Ive read about the cats getting plugged up but i dont think thats the problem here, they were replaced when we bought it 30,000 miles ago.

Ive heard about Vapor Lock, is this a possibility here?

I was going to suggest Cap & Wires. If something was burning, maybe the wires were resting on the intake manifold and possibly arcing causing the short why the engine wouldn't start.

maybe you are low on antifreeze making it overheat....

It is not the cap that is the problem with xterras...the WHOLE distributor needs replaced due to a common faulty bearing. If it were the timing belt, it would not restart. Most likely distributor or corroded or loose battery wire.

any codes?

Well the cap & wires look good but maybe the cap is still going bad, it did restart and is driving fine again...

I know how fussy the car gets when the battery cables come the slightest bit lose, I put on new connectors so that should not be the problem here...

I did consider that maybe the antifreeze was low and maybe it did overheat (my wife says she did not notice it overheating), I live in Utah and it dose get very hot though. I topped off the fluid and so far everything is running great...

And still no check engine light or codes....

Thanks for your help so far :)

The only weird thing to me was when I popped the hood it smelt a little like A/C Freon, is this a possible problem? A/C works fine and blows cold air. Maybe the intake sucked up the Freon causing to stall out?

I am for sure replacing the fuel filter and am going to check the fuel pump wire harness to see if there is some problem there.

blown head gasket.