Im looking for info on the intruduction year 1989 of the 3rd generation Maxima. Apparently there was only 800 made intruduced into the US as unbadged (not GXE or Sport). The rest were badged as something. These came totally loaded with every option and only came in 2 colors Champange or Black. Years after i believe Nissan badged it as GXE. Has anyone heard of this? Ive been told that mine is one of these (FatherinLaw bought it brand new). My 89 is like near new and i always get compliments on it. Im looking for info for a writeup as i plan on putting it in car shows in the near future.
If anyone has info or knows where to find this Thanks in advance!

 

mine is 1990 Brougham edition fully loaded and its unbadged, its champange and all black inside.

 

no US 3rdgens have any badging, do you have a digital dash?
since most of your 'post' is based off badges that never existed im guessing..

 

i have a digital dash w/HUD

 

Yeah, none were ever badged. I remember when I was younger and my mom first bought her '92 SE used from the dealer, we were always confused for YEARS as to whether or not it was an SE or a GXE because there are no markings or badges whatsoever on the car.

It wasn't until the interwebz came about that I was able to figure out that we had an SE as a teenager.

 

Nissan never made a maxima that wasn't a gxe or se. And they never came with trim badges only way to tell is spoiler sunroof rims and no chrome or gold trim. As well as a dual tip muffler from the factory for se models.

 

^ 4th gens and IIRC 5th gens have GLE, SE, and GXE

BTW 3rd gens in Japan started in 1988. i have seen Canadian 3rd gen Broughams at the junkyard here and they have a Brougham badge, i actually took the badges for my collection

 

The only different Max that I know of is the one I have...it comes with Sonar Suspension, digi dash, HUD and I think some had a special paint job. It would have been nice to have had one that was tagged with SET-Sport Edition Turbo.

 

Japan did not have a third gen maxima J30 since in japan it's a cefiro and there model in the same years as ours was rwd and a inline block with turbo. You guys really don't know that much about the cars you own and the simple fact that it was not a production car in japan only outside of japan it was produced. In 1995 the nissan cefiro went fwd and no longer turbo. In the years that the maxima 3rd gen was being produced for us japan got a turbo cefiro with a rb20det with hicas suspension. Nothing on the cefiro of our model looks like the 3rd gen maximas.

 

The 3rd gen J30 Maxima and RWD A31 Cefiro were sold as two separate independant models in Japan at the same time..1988-1994. The Cefiro went FWD in 1994 in Japan and all countries outside of Japan used this as the base for their 4th Gen A32 Maxima. Maxima name was dropped in Japan completely at that point.

They were definitely a production model in Japan, and here in New Zealand, we have had thousands of both JDM models imported as used 2nd hand cars in the early/mid 90's. My parents have owned both a 1989 A31 RWD Cefiro RB20DE and a 1992 3rd gen JDM import Maxima VE30DE. 3rd Gen Maximas sold new in New Zealand were only fitted with VG30E and werent released here until January 1991.

The rest of your post regarding the A31 Cefiro is correct in regard to having Hicas, the inline 6 RB20DET turbo models, some even having RB25DE.

 

Interesting piece of information being thrown in here. Nice to know.

 

I am pretty sure they had Maximas like ours in Japan, at least the VE ones. No other car has that engine. Otherwise, I don't think all of the JDM engines we have purchased were from other countries. All of the tags and paperwork I have were written in Japanese, lending me to believe it didn't come from Australia or New Zealand.

I have never been to Japan, so I can't confirm this, though.

 

Didn't know 3rd gens existed in japan either; until I saw a picture of a modified 3rd gen at some sort of vip/yankee car festival on a japanese person's website. The photo galleries were from car shows, taken in the early to mid 90's.

 

what are you talking about? Japan had Maximas like ours. i know a guy in Japan that gets vehicles for export mainly to Canada and he said theyre hard to come by but they are still around

Wikipedia even says our 3rd gens werent popular in Japan due to their size and they exceeded Japans width limit at the time

heres a 1988 commercial

 

somebody posted what youre talking about on here i think, was it a baby blue JDM 3rd gen on gold deep dish 100 spokes? somebody posted the pic around 6 months ago, and the cars in Japan

 

Nope, It was white with some kit I never seen before.

 

You are most correct. They had both the VG30E and VE30DE engines fitted. As used JDM imports we seemed to have got a good mix of both. Like New Zealand, second hand engines would have been imported from Japan.

Example of JDM Maxima models imported to New Zealand as 2nd hand cars. Most look identical externally to the US market models, except right hand drive.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mo...-348604468.htm VG30
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mo...-347698783.htm VG30
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mo...-349581137.htm VG30
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mo...-348798583.htm VE30

Examples of JDM A31 RWD Cefiro
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mo...-349986316.htm
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mo...-349818733.htm
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mo...-349471485.htm

 

^ a guy i knew from another forum in NZ had a RHD 3rd gen, i want a RHD one would have to find it myself though and do the paperwork

i should have asked the guy if any VE 3rd gens are in Japan still. it would be amazing to get one, nearly all of the RHD vehicles that get imported have less than 150,000km on them and theyre absolutely mint

didnt someone in the US get a RHD 3rd gen somehow? i remember someone posted on it a couple years ago

EDIT- found the NZ guys 3rd gen, had to dig into a 4 year old thread on another forum at the time his Silvia was "green stickered" so i dont know if he has the 3rd gen still or not, havent talked to him in a couple years