What's going on, guys? I'm about to get on the road with my 2000 i30, before I start modding and driving the hell out of it, what should I look for?

I'm more of a computer tech than a mechanic, so any help would be appreciated. Not only what to look for but how to check it. I want to start to become more self-reliant when it comes to my car.

 

Check fluid levels according to manual or common sense . Check that none of them is leaking - look under the car. Check/replace brake pads if they are worn out. Check tires for wear. Check if ball joints/wheel bearings are OK - put it on jack stand and try to move front wheel from side to side and from top to bottom (hands at 9 - 3 first and then - 12 - 6 o'clock). Check if your CV boots are fine (visually). Drive around and listen for unusual sounds. It helps to drive next to a concrete wall with window down - this way you'd hear sounds reflected by the wall. Change oil and air filter. Check spark plugs. Check/replace accessory belt. Check radiator support beam- it tends to rust right in the middle where cross member is connected to it. If it is rusted to holes then I don't know the easy way to fix it - I replaced mine last year and it was not fun.

 

These are all great points, especially the driving next to a concrete wall. Btw, could you take a picture of the location of where your talking about that it tends to rust?

 

If you're buying an older used car, and don't know much about them- The best $100 you could possibly spend is to get a pre-purchase inspection at a Nissan dealer. While taking care of and self maintaining cars is great, you want to learn this after you have a good, clean, reliable canvas.

 

Actually, I was thinking about doing that within the week. Thanks for reminding me.

 

I'm lazy but it goes below front radiator from left to right across front of the car and radiator sits on it- it's called 'radiator support' for this reason. If you look under the car you'd notice cross member - the beam going from firewall to the front of the car almost exactly in the middle. It's called 'cross member' and it is connected to the radiator support with 2 bolts at the front. Unfortunately, that's the place where it likes to rust the most. Cross member holds 2 engine mounts so if its front bolts don't have metal to hold to the engine weight pulls them off and its front end starts to hang down by about 1 inch. You won't lose the engine and the car stays drivable but I believe nobody dared to drive around like this for long. Just search here for 'radiator support replacement' and you'll learn. This problem plagued Maximas of all generations and usually manifests after 10 years so 3rd and 4th gen forums are full of these stories.

 

Buy and Haynes manual or downlown yourself a Factory Service Manual (FSM) and read up.....start small and work your way up!

 

I personally don't share belief in dealership level of service, I only use them for OEM parts and even that became problematic: $504 for power steering pressure hose for 2K (!). I see them for total ripoff. The only guys I can possibly trust are small shops whose owners CARE about their customers but they're hard to come by and usually extremely busy. Chain stores service is probably the worst as mechanics turnaround is high due to low pay hence the attitude. I also found out that quality of service has no relevance to the price - you can get better service and pay less even though it sounds counter-intuitive. It all depends on their business model.

 

You really missed what i said. Did i say ANYTHING about getting your car serviced by a dealer? Nope. I said get a pre purchase inspection from a dealer. Two totally different things.

 

I thought you implied this: Did you simply mean to move on to another car if the dealer finds anything wrong with it? It can get expensive quickly at $100 a pop. Otherwise I don't understand how do you propose OP to get 12 year old car in that state without repairing something.

 

Well I was thinking a pre-purchase inspection. They'll tell me what needs to be replaced or changed, etc.

 

I was trying to manage your expectations. My local dealers around here won't bother much for $100 and paying someone to produce report which mostly includes walk around the car is useless IMO. I'd ask first what that pre-purchase inspection includes. I doubt it includes complete diagnostic of every system in the car. OTOH, if they could check for possible major repairs then yes, it would be very useful otherwise you can check bulbs yourself.

Good luck.

 

Yeah dealers are actually pretty good with the inspection process because they are trying to generate as much work as possible for themselves so if there is something wrong they tend to find it.

When I bought mine I had Nissan give it a once over and they came back with a list that came to about $2000 of things wrong with it. I used that to negotiate the price down and then I fixed most of it myself.

The only thing they were wrong on was that they said the metal arm thing that controls the window wipers was broke. It actually turned out the inside of one of the wiper arms itself was stripped so all I had to do was go to junk yard and drop $5 on it.

 

That is not bad idea. I called the local Nissan service center and they said a walk in would cost $105. I'll see if I could negotiate it down.