and you guys really believe the 02 maxima is sexy and better looking than a 3 series?

95-99 maxima better looking than a 3 series i can see, but the new ones are ... well i know the truth hurts

 

too bad every board has an idiot like u on it.......

 

styling is subjective

 

okay maxima boy, like i said truth hurts

 

One thing I'd like to know is, does it really matter if 5th gen is faster than 330 or not???

One is FWD sedan that has lots of hp so not slow on straights but can't handle for ****, one is RWD sports sedan handles great with BMW racing heritage. Enought said??

 

so how much did it cost to do a RWD conversion again??

 

Here's my thing...does anything about the stock numbers matter? If you're stock, you probably don't really care. If you're not stock, you've got nothing to say until you meet on a track.

Enough said?

 

So afterall you are saying Maxima is a better bang for the buck, not that Maxima is a better car than 3 series, isn't it?

 

EXACTLY! my cousin has the 2000 323 steptronic and my 2k automagic took him EASILY off the line. i thougth they dont make 328's anymore??

 

They don't make 323 or 328....now 325 and 330.

 

Do you enjoy paying more than $10 000 more for a car because of it's heritage

 

for me it's worth it, it's rwd, it handles way better, it's a real sports sedan, it has free maintainese service ... plus compared to a 30k+ 5th gen, it's not really 10k more anymore.

now do you enjoy paying $10000 more for a maxima compared to a hyundai?? do you think a Ferrari is worth a quarter million??

 

this will never end

 

 

yah, the max is cheaper but in 4 years what will it be worth? less than half what it cost new. your run of the mill 3 series will still be worth at least 75% of the msrp. I wish I had had the money to buy a new bimmer when I bought my max. But our max's are the best deal for power and comfort. You can't buy a new 330 for msrp more like 36K when you after you add in basic **** like cd player, sunroof, leather, etc. we got all that in the max for 26K.

 

if its not THAT much more..why dont you just drive a bimmer? cause mods on the maxima can easily exceed 10,000 right?

 

i do drive a MPower bimmer.

even if a 3 series does cost 10k or more than a maxima, my point is still valid. there are cars that's 10k cheaper than maxima, why didn't you buy that instead of the max?
cars in the world range from thousands to millions, you pick the one that's worthy to you, simple as that, no point to compare how ur deal is better than others.

 

The Max is larger than the 5series, hence, the price point is more correct to compare to a eq equiped 530/540. Which is about 18K - 32K more.

Nissan doesn't have a little lux sedan (forget the G20, that's another discussion), if they did I sure it would compete with the 3series in many areas.

But some people are still over looking the fact that the Max(Big Car), can out run most (all except M3) 3series (LITTLE CAR). It will not out handle a 3series, but again it's a little car.

As far a looks I like both, 3series,5series,3rd-4th-5th gen max. It's funny I get a lot of complements on my car, then the next thing is what is that anyway? Looks are subjective, now there are some butt ugly cars and there is no helping them

 

Well, money matters.

 

exactly. you get what you pay for.
there must be reasons why you people bought the maxima over a hyundai, so there are reasons why some bought the 3 series over the maxima.

 

I had a choice of a a 328i Steptronic Sedan or a Maxima SE, I chose the maxima because it had more room (after driving the 328i for 2 months the room was getting to me), and the maxima you get more for what you pay for; but performance, I'm handing it to the 3 series.. acceleration may be faster by a few ticks, slower by a few ticks, but the car is more refined in the twisties.. 50 50 weight balance, RWD, IRS, the car was just nice, but not comfortable.

 

I don't know...the prices aren't really that far apart...equivalently equipped 325's and GLE's/SE's are less than $2K apart (or grab the AE from '01 which has a higher MSRP) and a 330 hits that $10 jump which I'll grant you is due to interior refinement in my opinion. The M3 is up there, but you lose some refinement for the engine. What else are you paying for? The engine, the VQ is well-regarded and so is Bimmer's 2.5 and 3.0. The Maxima is much larger, the Bimmers handle better. Both very modifiable. Appearance has nothing to do with it, all opinion. Both perform excellent. There are Nissan's on the road well into the six-figures on the odometer and so are their 3-series. Both sound like crap at over 100K miles.

 

What in the hell is the talk about a Hyundai??? good grief./ The guy is right why compare the Max to a 3 series? 3 Series=compact not midsize, isnt the 5 series midsize?

 

Someone finally makes sense

 

maybe some people consider a sports sedan only to be RWD, possible?

 

why can't hyundai be in the subject???
if you can compare a 3 or 5 series to a maxima, then i can compare a maxima to a hyundai.

btw just fyi, 5 series is rated compact too.

 

Okay, but that really doesn't have much to do with the "you get what you pay for" analysis you provided earlier. I'll grant you that RWD in a sports sedan would tend to be more appropriate.

 

I've driven a 330 5 sp. before and I wish I had one. They look and drive better IMO. But since I can't have one yet, i'll take the max before anything else.

 

i only said that cuz you guys keep on saying how 3 series can't outperform a max but costs more.

 

I didn't say that...RWD is good...certainly preferred over FWD...just don't think "you get what you pay for" works for this one. I'm not so impressed by the car to make it worth the extra $10K...I think its akin to paying 50 extra bucks to get a pair of Calvin Klein jeans instead of Levi's.


I wear Levi's 550s

 

I'd go with the CK's man But if it comes down the Max vs. 330, i'd take Max in 2 seconds

 

we are going in circles now.
are you impressed by the maxima to make it worth the extra 10k compared to a hyundai?

 

Having owned a Hyundai Sonata in one of the first production years, that's all I have to compare it to and I answer with a resounding YES

I don't have room to list the mechanical problems I had with that car.

 

Here is one of the big reasons to buy a merc/bmw/lexus

I checked at kbb.com (inlfated values there), or edmunds.com
check the trade in value of a fully loaded 2000' maxima SE. it's now $17,435 with 24Kmiles

check the tradin in value of a comparably equiped 2000' 328i sedan. it's still $30,690

What did these cars cost new? If I remember the msrp for the

Maxima: 23-24K (dealers wanted at least 26/27K for a 1999)
BMW 328i: 32-36K?? can't find any exact figures.

the max has depreciated around 30% in two years, the bmw around 17-20%. think how little the max will be worth in another two years. the bimmer will still probably be worth almost as much as the 2000' max was new.

It's JMO, but the depreciation value alone if I can afford to on my next purchase will sway me to buy a bmw, merc, or lexus. I still love my 2k1AE though, but I have owned 4 bmw's in the past and even the old ones had a certain "drivers feel".

72 2002tii
73 2002tii either car better than a new honda
72 bmw csi a car which dominated the GTC back in the day
88 M3 the one car I regret selling! also, dominated the GTC every year it was in production.

Maybe I should buy a bimmer huh?

 

As far as resell, Max will lose more as a percentage of MSRP .

Hyundai Sonata, we can go round and round. We shouldn't inflate the difference in the price of vechiles to "prove" a point. A 2002 Sonata 2.7(181hp/177) LX with ABS is about 20,569 MSRP. A MAX GXE is 25,239 MSRP. but wait the Max has a 3.5L(255hp/246), xenon, and other "little things". This is as "low" as a Max can go and as high as a Sonata can go with very little "feature" overlap. Hence, it's hard to compare $$$ when there is no (very little) overlap.

Please, no more Red Herrings.


The reason that the Max competes with and is thought of when buying a Name plate is the fact that it has reliablity close to if not better than, it has performance close to if not better than (some categories), it has features (Headroom, legroom, Nav, Standard Xenon, TCS, ...) that are close if not better than, and quality feel that's damn close, and to boot it has a price that when compared feature for feature (size included) it comes in $20-30K less than the NAME PLATE!


The Max happens to be an odd car, it can cover the family sedan needs because of it's size and price, but also cover the (lux) sport sedan because of it's performance ans style. Problem, people exspecially the NAME PLATE owners (and lovers) want to see the Max as a lowly Jap family sedan just like Accord and Cam ... Just Ten years ago the Max was consistantly doing head to head comparo's with the NAME PLATE's. I

I like the NAME PLATE's, but I am not going to be thier sucker until I have money to burn.

 

No, buy a Honda...they retain resale value like nobody's business.

 

I can say the same thing.
Having owned a '98 Maxima and now own a BMW, I answer with a resounding YES that a BMW is worth the extra money.
Thus, you get what you pay for.

 

Circles, you're right.

Huyndai:
-power door locks failed with 5K miles on it
-one passenger window got stuck in the 1st year of ownership
-suspension began creaking on turns in the 1st year
-had to replace a seatbelt in the first year
-automatic seatbelt for driver stopped working had to be replaced in first year
-Current trade-in value is less than $300 dollars
-There are 228 TSBs for the '89 and 213 for the '90 (1st V6).
-There are two safety recalls

BMW lists 354 TSBs for a '90 3-series, 5 safety recalls, and 4 general recalls.

The '01 330 sedan already has 1 safety recall and 47 TSBs. '01 SE Maxima has 21 TSBs and no recalls.

You could come back and say that recalls and problem-related TSBs do not reflect quality and a car's value...I could say they do...etc., etc.

We could go on forever...I am going to agree to disagree with you, just because having no agreed upon guidelines to determine which car is a better value or what differences determine what $10K in cost should carry with it...we will never reach resolution.

 

I do know that not all TSBs reflect problems, etc., etc. Could go through 1-by-1 and check them...but, like I said, agree to disagree.

 

As I said, cars in the world range from thousands to millions. There is no such a thing that a Diablo owner is an idiot buyer cuz his car is a terrible value compared to a Vette Z06.

There is nothing wrong with loving and car and praising it, I loved my Maxima too while it lasted. However, years down the road, when you actually move onto other brands, or even name brands, I think you will have a different opinion at that time, and start to understanding why you get what you pay for.

Peace.