Hello Everyone: Just a thought- do you think Nissan corrected most of the problems of the 04's on the 05's-I have 1500 miles on my 05 and no problems yet(i feel like Iam whistling past the graveyard after reading some of these threads).

 

Ant heard no fat lady!
Counld be!
Naa, Except for my tire problems, I think I'm pretty lucky too! My Maxima is one of the very early models, purchased march 03. Hopefully the Japanese VIPS were still watching & overseeing the production line.

 

Do not fret. It is normal for forums about a specific car to focus on perceived desgn flaws and issues.

I have an 04, it is flawless and wonderful.

 

My 05' has none of the issues I have read about here. My friend who sold me my Maxima said the 05' is much improved over the 04'. I just hope these Goodyears don't give any problem.

 

no probs here with an 04......tires look good still too.......knock knock........

 

I have a 04....most of my problems are dealer related....not with the car itself. Sad to see this car get such a bad rap sometimes. Now, most of the time, a car can be fixed.....hard to fix a bad dealership.....

 

Never buy a car in its first model year.

 

What sonic said is generally true, especially with American-made cars. I have been very lucky. I tend to buy the first year of each Maxima generation.

I even did this with the 1985 Maxima, when, in a complete redesign, Nissan switched from rear drive to FWD. I put 206K wonderful miles on that car; probably my all-time favorite automobile.

I bought my fifth gen 2000 SE in July of 1999, just after they began arriving at my dealer. Not one flaw in five years with that perfect car.

So here I am, with an '04 SL. This was probably my biggest gamble, what with Nissan moving Maxima production to the US in conjunction with a complete redesign. I'm keeping my fingers crossed . . .

 

Welll...we've got an early '04, and happily report that there have been only very minor problems (glove box alignment) except for the tires. We replaced the Continentals -- after one blistered -- with Potenza's -- and have had no further problems. It seems tires are a big issue on this car, no?

 

When thinking of all the bad reports on the Maxima, I like to go to a special place and reflect:
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=342957

By the way my Max, no problems (minor, grill peel/rattle) 1 year old, 20,000 miles!!

 

I've only had my '05 SL for a week and a half, about 330 miles worth, and have not seen the two big issues that have been brought up here (glove box alignment and steering wheel shimmy). So far, I'm just lovin' it!

 

[QUOTE=lightonthehill]What sonic said is generally true, especially with American-made cars.
Agree! but in the 6th gen Maxima, Nissan had the Altima to study & learn from.

 

SSurfer - I agree with you. But I must mention that the worst problems with the '04 Maxima seem to be in areas where they went a different route than the Altima. I feel the fact the '04 Maxima was based on the Altima may have worked against Nissan. The engineers probably felt, with so much of the car having been 'proven' in the Altima, less testing was necessary.

Where they went wrong is in not realizing the much greater engineering requirements in going to a larger wheel with a lower profile tire.

The larger diameter wheels (than the Altima), with the lower profile tires (than the Altima) seem to be more than the Maxima steering rack (similar to the Altima's) was designed to handle.

The quality of the Maxima tires is probably nearly as good as the Altima tires. But, for a performance sedan such as the Maxima, and with the larger wheels (than the Altima) and lower profile (than the Altima) tires, 'just as good' is not good enough.

The struts are also not strong enough for the Maxima.

The dash is totally different from the Altima, hence the glovebox alignment problem.

I could continue along this line, but I think where I am headed with this is that we all are aware Nissan made design/engineering errors with the '04 Maxima, probably felt the changes from the proven Altima design were not significant, engineering-wise, then failed to find the miscalculations in testing.

My main complaint is that Nissan seemed inordinately slow in coming to grips with these problems as they began appearing, and somewhat left the dealers uninformed as to what problems were showing up, and how the dealers should handle them.

Example: Some dealers are still fumbling with the glovebox alignment. This should have been addressed on the assembly line within a few months of the release of the '04; not fifteen months later.

But here I am on my soap box again. Thinking Nissan may be listening. Maybe. Maybe not . . .

 

Just took mine on a 400+ mile road trip and it drove nice and smooth....except has anyone noticed that you cannot set the cruise above 90 mph?

 

Yes, for safety reasons.

 

about 99% of cars are like that.