Well, it happened today. After 15 years and nearly 213,000, I sold my car. I am not happy, but the writing was on the wall and I no longer had need for 3 cars. My question, for any former owners who still read this forum, and for current owners, who have had previous Maximas, is what mechanical problem or problems finally made you decide to sell your beloved. Mine was the power steering pump. I had the high pressure power steering hose replaced a good month ago, and since day one, the car makes a moderately loud, whining noise from under the hood. My mechanic said the noise was air in the system and it would bleed itself out. Well, it didn't change a bit. From reading the forum, it seems that the problem arose because the new hose was not an original Nissan part. I seem to doubt that, but maybe it is so. I wasn't going to get it fixed again, and we just put a new Audi A4 in the garage so I figured it was time. I mean the car IS 15 years old with all of those miles. To be honest, the only other things wrong with her is the driver's door droops a bit, the rear driver's side window doesn't work when controlled from the back seat and a small area of rust just in front of the rear driver's wheel. She's been amazing. Goodbye old friend.

 

You'll be crying yourself to sleep after the audi gets done running you and your wallet through the ringer. And maybe setting your house on fire while it's at it.

Mine only get sold after they're wrecked. There's no reason to sell a perfectly fine car for chump change. New cars are junk (especially german lol).

 

My wife and I both drove Maximas. Then she hit 2nd childhood and went out and bought a Lexus convertible. So we sold the 97 Maxima. It had an oil leak, but otherwise it was in great shape.

And you will need a fat wallet for a Luxus, too.

 

That's pennies on the dollar compared to a german car, though, and it'll still be worth more than a paper weight later

 

I ended up do donating my 2k Maxima yesterday. Head gasket went south and was pulling in lots of coolant. Also an issue with the charging system. I was tired of working on it and fixing things.

We replaced it with a Toyota Camry hybrid including a 5 year maintenance plan and bumper to bumper warranty for 8 years.

I don't plan to put any effort into the Camry. Done with that stuff..my time is too valuable to be messing around with cars anymore. Funny timing because our mechanic is closing down his shop next week. Guess he is tired of dealing with cars as well.

We still have a 2k1 explorer which is running fine. As soon as something goes on that we'll replace it with a new car.

 

After 15 years (bought new in 2000) finally decided to get rid of the Max in April of this year. Too many things were breaking. Last was a $500 power steering hose. Along the way it was coils and sensors, cv joints,etc. Lately the radio was acting up, the radiator was starting to leak, mechanic told me it was starting to leak oil at the rear of the valve cover. It must of been extremely small because I never saw any indication of leakage.
Car was never in an accident, garage kept and all maintenance performed.
NO rust, dents and the paint still looked new. 120k on the odometer when I traded it.

Looking back it never left me stranded and was overall a decent car.

Love the new car, especially the tech. I would never own another vehicle that doesn't have these three technologies. Rear-view camera, blind-spot monitor and cross-traffic warning. LED headlights are awesome. 184 hp provides plenty of power, sport mode changes the shift points and makes it feel like you have an additional 20 hp and the gas mileage of roughly 25 in the city and 32 on the highway tops it off.

I love Nissans, have owned 4 and my daughter has owned 3 and currently has a new Murano but I love the Mazda's too. Have owned two previously,
a 86 RX-7 and a 91 626.

Somebody local bought the Max from the dealer because I have seen it pass me 3 times since I unloaded it. Hopefully I will run into that person in the future.

 

You mean 50 dollar hose and 30 mins of your time. Everything you mentioned is normal maintenance when they fail (usually higher miles, but the age got to them it sounds like). Except the radio, that thing is the biggest pile in the world. Nissan needs sued for that.

 

^Show me where you can get a power steering hose for $50. I need to replace mine and the cheapest I can find an OEM hose is $350.

I've been debating mine getting rid of my 03 for awhile now. Bought it used with about 60k miles on it, 8 years ago, and now I'm close to 250k miles. Besides a rather slow power steering fluid leak and oil burning, its been pretty solid. Which is why I'm hesitating having car payments for the next five years.

 

Buy one from rock auto. However it will whine out of the box. If you can deal with that awesome. If not a used oem one is a gamble but would probably get the job done. I would look into that before buying one from the dealer.

 

I paid 51 on ebay, iirc, for a Gates. No whining, either.

Gates is up to 90, now, but there's cheapo for 50 and edelmann for 68 (potentially whiners). Also, with a coupon code you can get one from advance for 83 plus tax (it has good reviews).

 

my edelman is good, no whine at all

 

That's BS. Try finding a hose for $50. Oem was $280 - $320 depending on where you got it, with labor cost me $500. As far a regular maintenance that's BS to . We have a 2008 Honda CR-V with 104k and it's had nothing done other than normal servicing. Never had a CEL light come on. Bought the extended maintenance plan because I was thinking of the Maxima and never used it. It just expired this year.
With the Maxima you never knew when the CEL light would come on.

 

Sold my 2k gxe with 250,000 miles and it still ran great. Sold it because I now have 2 2003s SEs (fully loaded)which I like more.

 

I didn't have to try. I bought one for 51 and installed it in 30 mins (half of the time was ****ing with the bracket). Mechanics lie, big surprise. I can use the internet and a couple wrenches. That's not a liar, that's a DIYer with a few brain cells.
CVs should last a lot longer unless you're modded, though, but they are a wear item (were they clicking?). Coil packs don't only fail on nissans (pretty common on VQs though). PS steering hoses fail just the same on hondas (or any car) of the same age. MAF/O2 sensors are a wear item. The cam sensors may fail, but not too bad on vq30 (crap shoot, recall on vq35). Every car is not the same. If you had bought a german car, then everything would be regular maintenance b/c it all can/will fail. That being said, there's two big problems on the 5.0 gen, but are easy fixes. Unplug the motor mounts and TB coolant bypass - yay no more fried ECU for 5 mins of work.

A lot of people don't replace any of that stuff until 150k+. I had a 2000 with 125k miles and NOTHING was replaced except maf that the previous owner oiled the **** out of (replaced rear calipers and VSS on sister's 2001, woooo, big repairs for 137k lol). You had bad luck with stuff failing early, but none of it is a big deal. Your car would last double the mileage with no real issues. I suspect some of it was driving behavior. That's low mileage for the age. Lots of short trips (heat/cool cycles) or tons of city driving are harder on components.

I think you also know nothing of Honda unreliability since 1998. The auto trannies are junk from 98-06. Here's one about insane oil burning http://www.hondaproblems.com/trends/...l-consumption/ It's not all roses. Ever since **** started being made in North America the quality has been declining. Those goddamn hondas V6s are also a lot harder to work on. I spent 3-4 hours on a PS hose and couldn't even use the stock brackets. The **** is stupidly designed. You also have a 4 cylinder, now. That's less power and less components to fail. That's just statistics.

Many, many people on here have gotten 250k miles with very few issues. There's a reason you don't see 4th and 5.0 gens in the junkyard unless they've been wrecked. They last.

 

Yup sold my 2k at 250,000 and the girl who has it drives the mess out if it. It's been a reliable vehicle with very few issues