Every inch of my '09 Maxima Premium's front bumper is exactly 8" off the ground when the car is empty, less if occupied. Several times in recent days, I have approached standard concrete bumpers or curbs in parking lots, been uncertain if the front bumper would clear them, put my wife out to check as I inched forward, and found the bumper would not have cleared several of them. And the bottom of the '09 bumper is a painted surface, not some sort of protective plate. And I weigh less than 160 pounds.

I would think the SV (without Premium) would also have this problem. I can't speak for the SV with Sport package and its 19' wheels.

I measured the distance off the ground of the bottom of the front bumpers of several nearby cars (yes, I always carry a tape measure in my trunk), and found most ranged from 10 " to 15".

So we need to be VERY careful when parking this '09 head-on against a curb or parking bumper.

 

This is good information. Most cars are designed to fit over standard parking lot abutments. I wonder why Nissan chose to be different.

The wheels should not make a difference. The rolling radius of 245-45-18 is the same as 245-40-19.

 

i never park that close to those concrete blocks i always stop before i get to the blocks..using the reflection from the cars next to me, i try to make my front tire line up with car next to me tire.. or alittle bit before it matches up.. .. and i hate seeing ppl care hanging over onto the sidewalk when i go to shopping centers.. its like i can hear the scraping sound of when the pulled up to the currb...

 

My Z28 is brutal with the clearance issue...I bet vettes are even worse. As far as the Sport package Max, I haven't had any clearance issues yet

 

I think Nissan chose to be different out of the overall design of the car and not necessarily due to intent, if you notice how low the front end sits it seems that they knew that the Aerodynamics of this car would be a somewhat higher Co-efficient Drag (I think it's around 0.33-most cars are 0.31 or lower) so they had to compensate somewhere for this by making the front end sit lower thus raking more wind over the hood to create more downforce and somewhat make up for the effects of the massive Shoulders the car has.

Then again it could be that they just didn't take it into account but I doubt that because they intended it to be a Family Car.

 

Two Words: Backup Camera :P.

I always back in to parking spots when it's possible which is pretty much all the time. With the backup camera it's going to be easy to tell when to stop at a safe distance from the concrete .

edit: just noticed the warning was about the front clearance .. sorry about the comment. Thanks for the info on the front clearance!

 

Good catch on the front clearance, Light! This is more a product of the '4DSC' heritage of the new Max. With an increased emphasis on making the 7th gen live up to the moniker keeping the front splitter as low as possible not only reduces frontal area, but more importantly, minimizes lift. As a 350Z owner for the past seven years, I ALWAYS have to be careful when I park. Worse yet, avoiding speed bumps and high angled driveways has become my mantra.

 

I have not noticed any issues as well and I am the same way of being slightly paranoid and sent my wife out to take a look to see if I was close or not. But as mentioned by others I just find it so much easier to back into a stall and use the camera to guide how close I get....! It comes in very handy, just another option I love on my MAX!!!

 

You guys send your wives to check for bumper clearances? Man I've got to get me one of those.

 

I was down under today to change the oil in my Max. Not only is the clearance tight with the front bumper, but there are two metallic tangs than hang down from the bottom of it that are 0.75 inches tall. They could be hold down hooks.

 

These could indeed be hold-down hooks for transport on a car-carrier (truck) or by auto rack (rail). Is one of them directly behind the little covered opening just above the front right foglamp? If so, it could double as the towing point for a flatbed rescue truck to attach to in order to pull the car onto the flatbed.

This might be a good place to mention that one of the testing mags included ground clearance as one of the stats in their writeup, and listed the ground clearance of this '09 Maxima as 4 inches. I have owned nothing but Maximas for almost twenty-five years now, and I don't recall any previous one with a ground clearance of less than 5 inches. I think dkmura is probably correct in that (along with shortening the car and making it wider) this is one function of making this Maxima more sporty. No more driving through the west meadow for me.


EDIT - And this front bumper clearance means I will not be able to go either in or out of the driveways of the homes in two new subdivisions near me where the driveways go fairly sharply uphill right from the street. And these are $500,000 to $1,500,000 homes. I think the builders could have done better than that. Its tough enough to sell a home with a well-designed driveway. Maybe, while others are lowering their Maxima, I will raise mine? (J/K)

 

Light, an old dog like you probably knows this trick: approach steeply angled driveways at an angle. The low front splitter will have less (if any) contact with the pavement at the lowest point. As someone with a lowered 350Z sportscar, I also find a slow measured approach gets me in and out of areas that would ordinarily be slamming my front bumper.

 

Is there any way we can add some kind of parking sensor to the front bottom or somewhere near the front bumper, that way if the parking concrete gets to close to the bumper then it would make that annoying sound like it does with the rear parking sensors when something is near, or even better running a little camera to the front bumper with some kind of relay to turn it on when you are parking only, and it would switch from rear camera to front camera maybe using the same channel or so. I've been thinking about this ever since I wanted to buy the stillen front lip for the car. All I can think is that if my wife drives the car with with the stillen lip, it won't last a day. I always park in reverse as well but there has been sometimes when I am in a rush to pick up my daughter or just drop mail off or something that I park fowards and then remind myself what damages I did to my clk55 that was dropped, the bumper to that benz was destroyed by my stupidity of parking to close to the parking bumper. Let me know if anyone has tried to do something like this to there cars, I'd be down to spend some money on this.

 

That is a trick I have used many times over the years. Another trick is to put all passengers either in the back seat or out of the car before tackling such situations (gains a fraction of an inch in front). Yet another trick is to carry 38 psi in the tires to gain another fraction of an inch. Your 45 degree approach is the best trick, and helps in most situations where the driveway is reasonably wide. It can be tough where the driveway is narrow, and for whatever reason (walls, fences, rock borders, soft soil, etc), the driveway can't be entered from a sharp angle.

But I certainly would either not buy a home with such a drive, or if I bought the home, would have the driveway redone very soon.

 

Anybody remember curb feelers? I bet Light does!!

 

My wife already scraped the driversside lower bumpber cover , and took some paint off, I need to get some touch up paint.
We ownly had the car a month , broke my heart ,
Oh well , now we know we to approach a curb in parking lots carefully.

 

Yup. I did it too, to my wife's car. just touched the sidewalk though. can't see the damage.I am a lot smarter about how to park it now (if she let's me drive it, also lost the 2nd fob and key. Big trouble)
As for touch up paint, the dealer has it for $16.00 in Canada. Got a small rock chip on the front and covered that.

 

The 4" ground clearance underneath the middle of the car has proven to be a problem for me. There are dozens of speed bumps around where I live that are over 4" tall, and my beloved '09 scrapes horribly going over them. I can look at the gouged out speed bumps and see that many other vehicles are also scraping. There are some really stupid people making decisions in this world. Decisions such as how high to make speed bumps.