From past experiences with other Maximas, I found that to be essentially true. The problem is finding situations where 60 MPH can be safely maintained in the rain.

I also found that, although the rain was not directly falling into the car, there would always be a light spray from the rain colliding with parts of the car, and some of those tiny 'spraylets' entered the car; enough that my wife wanted the sunroof closed.

The only way I drive over 55 in the rain is if traffic is very light, the road is straight with almost no puddles, my tires still have at least 8/23nds of tread left, and it isn't raining very hard.

I still remember flying across middle Georgia on back roads around 50 years ago, making one of our frequent trips between Montgomery AL and Raleigh NC. We would always leave around 11PM, hoping to arrive by 6AM the next morning. There was little interstate highway at that time, and we would sail through the darkness along deserted rural roads at 80 MPH. Until the night we crested a hill, raced down the other side, and realized too late there was about two feet of water standing on the roadway at the bottom of the hill.

Believe folks when they say that hitting water at 60 MPH is just like hitting a dirt bank. Talk about a ruined trip. And I had taken such good care of that nice '61 Pontiac Star Chief . . .

 

congrat, you are so lucky

 

The User manual specifically states that the I-key can't be used to raise the windwos, only lower them.


Light, I have to disagree with you about Nissan intentionally not making the sunroof water tight. That would be absolutely **** poor engineering and product design.

Rather, I'd like to believe that the product design is top notch and incorporates a gutter/drain system in the event that the main sunroof seal DID leak or the sunroof were left cracked open.

Also, for what it's worth, if the sunroof were not water tight, then it wouldn't be airtight either and would generate LOTS of wind noise at speed.

 

Well, we can agree to disagree. I'm not saying that Nissan's design is sloppy. I think they have worked very hard to cover all bases. But the reality is that, no matter whether by design or otherwise, Nissan sunroofs are NOT watertight. That is why every Maxima built since back in the 1990s has had two tubes running from the channels under the sunroof to underneath the car behind the front tires.

The fact there were several inches of water in my '04 driver's footwell, along with every part of the interior to the front left of the driver's seat dripping water, speaks not to a tiny leak, but an opening that was much more accessible to water.

The 'proof of the pudding', so to speak, was the fact other 6th gen Maxima drivers were having the same problem I did. Some found water in their ceiling sunglasses compartment, some found water running down their instrument panel, and many had water running down and dripping off one of their 'A' pillars. But each of these problems disappeared when the sunroof drain tubes were unblocked.

I finally posted my research on this water problem as a sticky (still there) on the 6th gen board, and had posts and PMs from drivers for several years who were having the same sunroof water problems I did, all caused by the crimping of one or both drain tubes that are necessary to carry sunroof seepage around the passenger compartment. None of those folks ever mentioned any wind noise. All I can say is that there was absolutely no wind noise detectable from my closed sunroof.

The conclusion finally reached on the 6th gen board was that this seepage probably exists on all 6th gen Maximas (maybe even other gens?), but is of no consequence unless one or both drain tubes gets blocked, and that the assembly process on the 6th gen sometimes resulted in blocking one or both of those tubes.

 

thanks light. Atleast you believed me Very true about how hard it is to find a road to drive over 55 while in a downpour. Ironically the drivers in Florida are affected by water. The slightest drop of rain instantly turns them into idots driving and "automobile" for the first time.

 

I think part of that may be due to the several million elderly retired folks living in Florida. As we get older, three things tend to happen:
1 - Our eyesight and reflexes become less sharp.
2 - We become more aware of our mortality.
2 - We begin to comprehend how speed and water do not mix well.