Woke up this morning to get my oil changed...i had a coupon for firestone... 4 oil changes in the next year for $29.99. They are flooded with cars...so I make an appointment Wednesday morning at 8AM. Most of you probably don't know the story of my car.

I bought it back in mid-April 2005 just after my 16th birthday. I have paid for it myself, so I do everything that it needs as far as maintenance is concerned. If I'm a little short between paychecks, I just have my parents forward me the money...and I pay them back. I care about my car...it gets washed at least one time per week when the weather is good.

So anyways, I go to buy it. I saw an ad on the internet for it. 2000 Nissan Maxima SE. Gray. 5-spd manual. Fully loaded (except for heated seats...i'm not sure if they even offer those). 165,500 miles. They even said the owner put brand new axles on it. All it needed was flushing all the fluids and changing the air filter. My dad and I testdrove it. It ran great. Wheels aligned, clutch stiff, gearbox great. Engine clean and in great shape. We figured it was all highway miles because the previous owner was a salesman who drove all over the country..so we figured less stress on the engine because of that.

So a week later, after the wholesale dealer had flushed the fluids and "replaced the air filter" (which we later found out they did not replace it) and cleaned it up and patched some knicks in the paint, I picked it up and gave them the cashier's check.

The car drove great...for 200 miles. Then it started dying on me when I went into neutral when the engine was warm. It turned out to be the coils, spark plugs, and spark plug wiring. "No problem, I thought," because I had read up on the Maximas that many times the coils had to be replaced. And of course, spark plugs wear out.

Then my dad, as my late birthday gift bought me replacement Nitto NT450 tires to replace the ones the previous owner had worn down. About two months later, I bought some nice halogen headlights with my and had those installed with the 20th anniversary shift **** with a nice portion of my paycheck. (would have installed the shiftknob myself, but even a wrench could not get it unglued. The shop i went to had to heat the **** up a little to get it to come off!). So the car's looking great now.

Then in September or so, Bankston Nissan tells me my clutch is fried, and it's not safe to drive. Personally, I felt it become a bit mushy, but I didn't feel it needed replacement. Apparently, though, the clutch had not been replaced in all 170,000 miles at that point. So I called my dad from the dealership and asked what he thought on the matter. He told me to go ahead and do it, and he'd help me out paying for it...it'd be nice to have a clutch that wasn't 170k miles old. This is where the story of my Maxima has gone sad from then until now.

Because I'm not 18, I can't own the car, even though I've paid for it all myself. So my dad owns it. So when it's in the shop, they call my dad instead of me to ask what I'd like done to it, etc. When Bankston Nissan found out that they would not be able to get a Nissan clutch in for about a week, they called my dad and asked if they could get a generic clutch put in. They said it would function just the same. When I got the car back a week later, I felt the lightest clutch I'd ever felt. When it went into gear, it felt horrible as the car would shake up and down as it engaged. To drive somewhat smoothly, I had to give it about 1800-2000 RPMs starting out in 1st. Downshifting to 3rd and 2nd wasn't smooth either. Before I left the dealership, I talked to 3 different mechanics about it. One said the clutch felt bad and was too flimsy. Another said the clutch was acting normally, and I was just used to a bad clutch. Another wasn't sure... so that made me ticked off. I called back a couple times to ask about it, but they said "well...we'll just have to look at it" or things like that.

The next time I had it in for an oil change, I wanted them to look at the clutch and related components. I dropped it off before school, and my dad picked me up from school and got the car from the dealership. As usual, they talk to him and say that my flywheel is warped. That's what's causing the car to shake going into gear. Now I've got a question. How does your flywheel become warped the second after you have a new clutch installed? They also said that there was about 1 year's worth of wear on the clutch. The thing I said to that is that I was giving it higher RPMs going into 1st gear to keep the car from jumping up and down when it wasn't engaging properly.


So I'm driving to a highschool football game by myself in October or so, and the car is making a horrible grinding noise from the front axle.

Then my transmission oil began to leak a couple weeks after that. Bankston replaced the seals for $400+. 3 days later, the car began leaking more transmission oil. They replaced the seals at no charge, because they were under warranty. They said that after they fixed the seals, the noise should stop. But the noise still kept up.

So we take it in and the service manager kindly said he would have his best guy look at it. What they found cost me a lot of money. Instead telling me first when I had the clutch replaced as well as the leaks that I had this problem, they finally found out. That "new axle" was not a Nissan Axle. It was some axle from a junkyard or something...it didn't fit. So when Nissan was putting new parts on, they couldn't get anything to fit right. But why didn't they realize this? So at this point, I'm a little ticked. Eventually, the kind service manager was willing to have a refurbished axle, new flywheel, and other components (not a new clutch) put on at the cost of the parts. So 2 weeks later, the car is ready. My dad picked it up for me while I was a work, and he brought it up so I could drive it home. Everything pretty much felt fine. The transition from a stop to 1st gear was still a bit bumpy, but not nearly as much as before. So at this point, I was pretty content.


Then today came.............

About 1000 miles after all of this work had been done (I'm at 174,850 miles, and the car has been in the shop for a combined total of about 30 day, so as you can see I put a lot of miles on it) I'm out to lunch with a friend. He drove me in his Suburban (wow I actually didn't drive this time). My dad is moving my car in the driveway so that my mom can back out of the garage. He adjusted it behind his 02 Tahoe. The gearbox froze. It was immovable from neutral except into 5th gear and Reverse. However, what we thought was neutral was actually in 1st gear!!!!???? I would let out on the clutch in what i thought was neutral, and it would roll forward. Reverse would stall out when the clutch was released, and it would not move backward. When the gearbox was in neutral with the parking brake OFF, we could not push the car backwards. So now, the situation is not good. With the clutch in and the car turned off, we were not able to push it backward at first. So now I'm thinking and wondering how I'm going to be able to get this thing on the wrecker if I can't push it backwards in the driveway...I'd basically have to have it dragged on. But then I had an idea. I turned the car on and had my friend push it when the clutch was pushed in. It was able to be pushed back!? So then I sadly watched it roll away being dragged by a wrecker...Then I go back to where it was on the driveway...and there is black resin on the ground (I assume that's from the clutch).

Now I don't know what to think, how much this is going to cost...I'm almost hoping my car falls off the wrecker and crashes itself into a wall so I won't have to deal with it...but then again...I like it too much...that engine runs perfect. It's got front clear corners, halos, a Flowmaster 60 Delta flow muffler to replace the stock one that got clogged up and made the car difficult to start.


Anyone have any ideas on what this is going to involve/ what is wrong with my car?

 

damn man,

your post needs a table of contents.

relax dood.

 

clifffs?...

 

Sorry to hear such a nightmare with your first car!
What you have learned is that if you buy a high milage car, you need to have alot of cash in reserve for future repairs. If you are able to do the repairs yourself getting a car with 165,500 miles may not be such a bad idea, but if someone else is going to do it, it may just be too expensive to keep.

 

holy shnikies. thats uscks man. just sell the car man, it really sounds like it will never run right uless u replace the whole tranny, and i dont know what else. seriously tho, sell the car and cut your loss, try n find a cheaper 4th gen with under 100k.

 

I think your problem is having a nissan dealership do the work. They are good at handling simple things like replacing belts, even some people wouldnt trust them to do that including myself, but I would bet atleast 75% of orgers would never let a dealership work on a tranny. If you took it to a good local shop Im sure everything would have been fixed the first time it was there. I would suggest making it simple for yourself by telling them nissan dealership to replace the entire tranny before the fawk something else up. Good luck

 

i would seriously rather go to my local bp gas station for an install rather than the dealer.... a generic clutch? u should have ordered one from here, DaveB or even group deal aftermarket ones...another reason i dont f*ck wit my local dealers unless the item is less than 15 dollars to purchase. and i ONLY mess wit them in that situation cause the 2-5 dollars i would save ordering from daveB doesnt justify the wait.

 

can you do a summary.....Damn that's a long story and I stoped reading it. Please!!!!

 

One thing i've learned working door to door with a wholesaler is not to buy a car from one. I work on so many cars from that guy that he brings from auctions and it's just one problem after another. It sucks might i ask, how much did you purchase your max for?

 

I'm not sure what to tell ya, the car at this point seems like it'll just become even more combersome to keep up, i'd attempt to salvage the aftermarket parts that I can, and attempt to sell it and get a car with less use.

 

sounds like you might need a new tranny. Since you had most of the work done at the dealership, they will have records of your frequent problems. Call Nissan Consumer Affairs and see if you can get them to cover the cost or meet you half ways. For somebody like you who keeps having problems they are *usually* more sympathetic.

When they replaced your clutch, they SHOULD have noticed that the axle was not the right one because to replace the clutch you have to REMOVE both of them. That in itself is UNACCEPTABLE! Also, what comes with a clutch replacement is a flywheel resurfacing. Check your invoice to see if they charged you to resurface the flywheel (this ALWAYS should be done with a clutch replacement). If they didn't do it than we have a big problem as to why your flywheel is warped. If they did do it and it is warped, then they could have done it wrong. Regardless, there are a number of problems here and if you bring them up to the manager of the dealership, or to Nissan Consumer Affairs you might be able get them to front most of the money to fix it....

Regardless, 180K miles for a 2K Maxima is not that bad. These things taken care of can go twice that easy. The problem is htat you don't know how well the previous owner took care of it...

 

**** man that would have sucked if your computer froze when you were trying to post that message, how long did it take to type that? I'd just say sell the car and start over. Good luck

 

Same here. Just sounds like he can't do anything on his own.

 

Yeah...only problem is my dad wouldn't let me take it to another shop...there's a great shop a couple miles from my house...not too expensive...only $35/hour...oh well

The car cost me $6650

Personally, I'd rather have a $6650 maxima than a $6650 chevy cavalier or junky BMW that I couldn't expect to work right. Who wants a honda (unless it's a Prelude) anyway?


LIke one of you said, you just don't know how the owner previously treated it. Talking with my dad (who works for Autonation through AutoUSA), he thought it was a good buy...I was looking at another one with 80k miles...but it was about $13,000...then i prolly could have haggled down to $12k or so...

Maximas, if the first owner treats them right, and does all the maintenance, should last forever.

my cousin's boyfriend has a 99 Maxima with 330,000 miles...hasn't had to do anything to it other than regular maint.

If the thread is too long for you...sorry.

 

uhh...and also...look, I'm 16, i work 30-40 hours/week, I go to school for 9 hours out of the day...i wake up at 5:30 am to get some exercise....i don't exactly have a lot of time to do everything on my own...

at least i know how to change my oil, change a tire, flush most of the fluids and junk out...

 

Cliffs??

 

Oh fun...I get to buy a whole new 5 speed manual transmission...looks like this is going to be between 2000 and 3000+tax

 

Unless they are going to cover any of the cost, get on www.car-parts.com and find one used. You should easily be able to find one for $500-$600

 

cliffs > *

My above statement is a though.



VLSD on car-part ~ 800-950$

 

Good ol'e KEY VALUE CLUTCH KIT. Aka Crap Value Clutch Kunt.

They put in an inferior clutch kit. Probably chatters to make it vibrate. They also probably screwed up the seal install and ruined the axle by not putting it in all the way.

 

They were messin with the transmission, they should fix it for free

 

And we shouldn't have to pay taxes.

 

Dude, sorry to hear about your problems. Sucks to have stuff like this happen to you, especially with school and work. Did you do a carfax first? From the sound of things, I wouldn't be surprised if it was bought/sold at an auction before you got it. This car was obviously not taken care of correctly, so you don't know what else is going to go ka-boom. Just for peace of mind, I'd agree with the other people who suggested you cut your losses now...or hope something unfortunate happens to it and your insurance covers it.

 

Ouch! sorry to hear that ...

 

Well, the morale of the story is never buy any used car from any salesman (no offense to the original poster's dad if he happens to be one :-). Guess for new cars there is no other choice but it is a new car, at least.

I am no mechanice but I am always suspicious of any car salesman who sells a used car like it is a "great" deal. You are not his match cuz he will definitely not sell without a good profit and when he does the buyer usually gets screwed.

Also, never buy a used car without first checking Carfax for its history. I would say to check at least two sources cuz sometimes one agency does not capture all the history.

 

yup...we did the carfax...nothing seemed out of place....

 

yeah, but bad things don't happen when they need to...well...it didn't fall off the back of the tow truck.


the only sad thing is i can't prove that they screwed up the transmission...all i know is i'm never going back pretty much no matter what my dad says...


and that's another stupid government thing. It's not my car even though I paid the $6650 + tax&fees for it...because I'm not 18...it's my dad's car...

 

Why would you put a new 5 speed in that car? I was quotre a price of $1,800 shipped for a 6 speed with HLSD and 8K on it. You should be able to get a slightly used 5 speed for a lot less. The 6 speed HLSD is still a relatively new and rare unit compared to a 5 speed. This was with warranty also. They also sell rebuilt units with 3 year warranties.

I'm locked out of my e-mail at work or I'd post the link to them. Just search rebuilt transmission on Google and you'll find lots of them for sale with warranties. You may not be up to it yourself but it's not that big or a job for a mechanic to just swap out. While they're in there they can put in a proper clutch. Putting a brand new tranny in that car is aaand a

 

Was this your first manual trans.car........

 

yup...first car...

and if anyone asks how I treat it (although I've said above)...I don't roast the clutch by giving high RPMs and letting it out slow, I don't burn out...besides, that looks stupid with FWD...oh yeah...and basically have been completely screwed by a dealership...who my dad said "would know what they were doing".....

 

dude, i thought my car had problems... ive only taken in my car for my BOSE for a few times and that ticked me off. but reading your story.... boy do i feel better . you can find really nice cars with 6g's but you had to get a maxima didnt you? sorry to hear for all the troubles you went through. i hope you sell it, and not keep it, who knows? it could have more problems even witht the new tranny, that car sounds like its cursed. or maybe you have bad luck with cars.

 

well...i dunno...it's been a pain...but hey...at least basically all of my drivetrain is replaced (engine runs like a dream)...and also... there's quite a difference to me between a $6650 Maxima and a $6650 Corolla.

 

you could get a civic or accord, or something cheaper, im not telling you to get anything, but when i was 17 i drove in a 83 volvo for a grand. it didnt have style but it still got me to places. but i know how you like the vq. cant blame ya. after i crahsed the volvo (rear end some guy) i got a nice 87 legend cp for 2500. from owning 4 cars since 17, ive never came across problems like yours. good luck witht the max.

 

*shrug*...those accords are nice and all...(especially the low-riding ones from about 1992), but it they don't compare to a 3.0L Maxima...maximas are even safer too...although a Prelude would be fun...oh yeah... I'm under 25 and not married darn it!