From Nissan,courtesy of The Car Connection:
http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?article=4878


Senior VP Emil Hassan of Nissan’s award-winning plant, where current capacity is 440,000. “But Smyrna is about to undergo major production increases; we’ll go up to the 510,000-515,000 range after the January (2003) launch of Maxima.

"Hassan was a little cagier when it came to Maxima numbers, with the official company line being that 80,000 will be built in Smyrna. "

And more....

Well, we could speculate that some Altima production could switch to Canton, or that if the new, smaller Maxima cedes its sales volume leadership to Altima, Nissan could make all Maximas in Smyrna, and none in Japan.

"Smaller" Max?

 

Well there's been talks of the 2k4 Maxima becoming the twin of the G35 for Nissan. I guess will just have to wait and see.

 

I predict that sales of the Maximas will go down once they are made here.
I purposely bought the 2K2 because it was the first import I ever bought (in 32 years of driving) and I wanted it built in Japan. I wanted to see exactly what all the hype was about (i.e. getting a vehicle built in Japan).
I test drove the '02 Altima SE 3.5 (which is built here) and there was no comparison with the Maxima. Altima felt jittery, lots of road noise, etc.

 

I wouldn't shy away just because the Max will be built in the US instead of Japan. It's not like Nissan is giving it to Ford to build. A lot of the production processes, standards, etc are probably shared resources with Japan. And who says they're not building some of the Maxima in Japan as well?

 

Not to mention, that in actuality much of the exterior design for both the Altima and Maxima occured right here in the US. However the internals are all japanese (as is my understanding).

I'll buy a max wherever they build it, so long as doesn't come out of a Ford factory!

 

One thing I like about Ford is their Expidition... When I want to reach high places I just jump up on the hood and walk up to the roof. Doesn't dent like the maxima would...

Then again its an SUV. Different story. I'll shut up now.

 

I would to think Americans can put bolt A into hole C without making a mistake, I would like to think the design of the car was the reason for the road noise , jittery and whatever else. To think that if you take a bunch of car parts and have 2 different groups of people put it together that it would come out different for some reason. I tried the 3.5 Altima and thought it was a great car