Yeah I was in Denver on business a few months ago. I had a ford escape with the V6 as my rental. I swore up and down it had a 4 cylinder till I popped the hood to check. Altitude makes a significant difference in the performance of the vehicle and at 13,000 feet as I was driving through the front range the thing was hilariously anemic.

 

I'm a noob but I just bought a 2k2 black on black, 6speed w/hlsd, you will not be disappointed. It is an all around great car that is capable of 142mph (personal experience)

 

Why don't you just decide and stop acting like we are your wife. You do not need our approval. Be a man and decide on your own. Your membership to the mens club has been revoked. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

 

DTR...this thread is 3 pages long on something that's been beaten a million times over. The bottom line is this: the 5.5 gen Max has a ton of torque steer, you can hardly hook up until you're well into third gear, it has some creeks and rattles, it doesn't handle as good as say even an Accord (due to the rear suspension) and a tractor trailer can make a tighter u-turn. All that said, regardless of what car you're considering you can nit-pick it apart like this and every issue stated has a thread somewhere on this incredible site to fix it. I love my Max, overall it does everything that I want from being a comfortable family car to a rocket ship that can stick a GT Stang, but it has to do what you want it to do to be worth while.

That said...my advice is to stop considering and just go buy one. BTW you're gonna have a hard time finding one outfitted the way you want it for 14K unless it has a ton of miles or has been beaten silly.

Best of luck and let us know what you get.

 

How can you say the maxima doesn't handle as well as the accord? Comparing same year to same year the maxima beats the accord both on the skidpad and in the slalom.

 

Damn magazine racers..

 

The skid pad and slalom aren't laced with bumps. You take a Max at 9/10s through a bumpy back road and the *** end will wander all over the place, do the same with an Accord, TL, RSX, even a Civic and you won't have that issue.

 

well unfortunately despite my rather long racing background I only know of a couple people that have real G meters, so for that kinda stuff you pretty much have to base it on data from magazines.

 

...

 

That makes perfect sense, lack of an IRS can reek havoc on bumpy roads...both my Z28 and both my TA's lacked the IRS. They can handle just as well you just have to be a little more alert when driving because an unsettling bump at 9/10 or 10/10 can upset the *** end as you probably know. I dont really consider it a huge problem, but maybe thats cause I'm used to it? A few suspension mods stiffen it up a bit and while a lot of roads have some bumps in them hallet (local race track) does not

 

That's why in my statement that immediately followed I said that every quirk had a solution in a thread somewhere on this site. Don't get me wrong the Max handles very nice, but in the real world compared to a comparable car with IRS, the Max won't handle as good. Edit unless you make some modifications.

 

As long as I'm comfortable/happy with my car, and I like the way it feels/rides/looks etc, I don't give 2 flying as.s ***** what a magazine says. Nor do I care what cars I can 'beat', no matter at what event.

 

It could be worse, it could be a solid axle like my TA...you wanna talk about getting the jitters when it gets rough. My IROC was the same way. I was going 10/10ths at a track and took a slightly different line than I normally did and I clipped the right rear tire (turning left) man I soooo thought I was gonna loose. I dunno how I didn't spin it but I managed to hang on and ride the slide but I damn near had a loaf in my pants...

 

Thats true, however, if I get a max I do plan on tracking for the fun that it is.

 

Auto xing the A33 on stock springs is just wrong.

 

Dropping a car and then dragging the front on my driveway is worse

 

Can't be that bad can it?

Mine's pretty steep and no problems... The car sits high as it is, and the springs make it where it should've been from the factory. A mild drop will not scrape on your driveway.

Mine is quite steep as I stated, but it barely nipped my 95 with Eibach drop, and Stillen front lip. Have you read through ths stickys far enough to see housecor's comparison thread with pics? It may help you in your decision.

 

I will definately check it out. My TA drags and its not dropped so that makes me wonder cause its not that low to the ground. If I get a maxima a new set of shocks/struts may be in order.

 

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95
Stock for stock a supra would *** rape a type R. Sorry man but you dont have a clue what you're talking about on this subject. 93-98 Supra's consistently ran 67 to 70mph slalom speeds and pulled .92 to .98 g's on the skidpad. The C5 vette will pull similar numbers. C5 Z06's will pull in excess of 1.0G on the skidpad and run deep into the 12's.


You did mention 1/4 mile time, which is a indication that you are mentioning power.... I never said anything bout Type R wining any 1/4 or dyno shoot outs. All I said was its a better handling car out of the box than the Supra. I do not care what the magazines say, if you look at the slalom and latteral Gs of a Maxima, they are better than most sedans- yet 5th gen will get its azz whopped by almost any IRS sedan out there once the road gets bumpy. It feels smooth going down the road straight, but make it turn at high speeds over some uneven highway pavement and it will make you aware of the inferior suspension design.

 

We already had this discussion on bumpy roads yes the maxima will give up some performance. On semi smooth and smooth roads its going to be as good or better as the numbers indicate. No one ever wants to look at numbers but numbers speak volumes for cars especially since most of us dont have the means for the 10s of thousdands necessary in equipment to perform our own tests.

Skidpad and Slalom numbers are good indicators to how a car will perform on a race track and semi indicitive of daily performance. Yes on a rough road IRS is a good thing, no one is disputing that, but I dont know of too many race tracks or twisty roads that are that bad and I live in Oklahoma, our roads are known for issues. Sure if you pick out a ****ty *** road an IRS will dominate, otherwise it comes down to the grip a car has which is indicated by the skidpad and less so by the slalom. The slalom is more indictive of a cars ability to shift its weight and direction quickly and effeciently...

edit: the type R doesn't pull 1.0 G on the skidpad or go through the slalom at 70+ mph or run 12's the numbers tell the story...on the track the Z06 and Supra are better cars...on an autoX that would depend, the Type R is very tossable and fun as hell...but the Z06 has been doing very well in autoX's.

 

DTR: one thing nobody has touched on here is your quote:

[QUOTE=DTR Maxima] From what I have been reading the 5.5gen is capable of lower 14's stock @98mph or so. And with basic bolt on's like intake, headers, catback, udp, I am looking at high 13's at just over 100mph correct?

Please give me some links that substantiate this statement. I couldn't find any. I was looking at:

(1) http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=250718 which is our 1/4 mile site, and only found 2 cars running 13's. (ck. it out for yourself).

In addition, go to:

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=289125

Post 2 by DaveB:

<<I also don't agree that 5th gen 3.5s with "a mod or two" will do upper 13s. There are only two verified 5th gen 3.5s hitting 13s. It took Emax an UDP, intake, one-off y-pipe, catback, and light rims to get a 13.8@101mph on a cold night. Same goes for BluByu's auto. It took him a y-pipe, intake, exhaust, and UDP and usually slicks. These guys also run at sea level tracks near the coast which makes big difference (nice baro pressures). Nearly every single Maxima that posts above average times is run at a sea level and coastal track (NY, NJ, MD, AL, FL).>>

Now I understand the above quote was made in early 2004, and things may have changed. If there is another link where more recent slips are listed with more people running 13's, I would LOVE to see it. U did stress BASIC bolt ons, bec. I am aware of turbo/sc/NOS Maxes running sweet times.

My point is there is not a large percentage of Maxes running 13's with BASIC bolt ons. U own a low 13 sec. AWD WRX, and are going to move into a 14 sec FWD 6 Spd Max bec. its more refined, has better low-end torque etc. etc. I would NEVER do that. If u're comfortable with that decision, then good, but do keep this in mind before you choose. U're an enthusiast. Its in the blood. If I am wrong, and there is a high ratio of 5.5's running 13's with BASIC bolt ons, then you have an argument for the Maxima. But I kinda don't think so. Choose wisely and Good luck!

ShyMax

 

Yeah, it seems I was mislead by many members here. In the "other cars" forum they were comparing a 5.5gen 6spd to a Mazdaspeed6 and by what I remember from maxima's when I owned mine it was not easy at all, in fact VERY rare to find 5.5gen's doing low 14's stock and high 13's with bolt on's... but there were many people in the thread that called me out and insisted that it has happened and is not particularly hard to do this.
Upon further inspection I found very few people actually capable of such times and the majority of times being in the mid 14's (14.4-14.6). Nonetheless, it seems with intake, header, exhaust they run low 14's pretty effortlessly, which is still not bad at all considering they will trap ~ 100mph still.

Still a respectable time for a Maxima, but I was lead to believe it was not uncommon to see 5.5gen's pulling low 14's stock.

You have many good points.

This is part of the reason I have decided to hold off on the maxima search for now. I undoubtably going to wait until summer to make a decision and see what happens. Again, my wrx is fun as hell pulling low 13's and outhandling 99% of anything on the road with its full built suspension but again, it is not a city friendly car. I am considering switching engine management to something that will give more linear torque and make acceleration smoother, then putting my suspension back to stock, or mostly stock... changing out the shifter bearings and using a better tranny fluid. All of this will make the car much more daily driver friendly, so we will have to see.

I will still test drive another 5.5gen 6spd just to see how it feels, because I still might end up getting one. Thanks for the input though, it is appreciated.

 

My Maxima a 6 speed and i love it. Although i find that some times it is stiff when i move from 1st to 2nd. Other than that it is gr8.