Is it just me or do the "New Rounded Tips" look exactly like the G35/G37 exhaust tips?

 

Flip - I'm sure you meant that to say: 'So now that we see the 2011, of course this leaves me wondering what next year is going to hold.'

I am very optimistic about the 2012. Nissan knows this 7th gen design is hot, and is not going to do very much to the exterior. Probably a new grill fitting into the same size opening as we have currently. Possibly a slightly different treatment of the openings along the lower portion of the front bumper.

These exterior changes will be things that Maxima fans will immediately notice, but nothing that really changes the looks of the car. In other words, our current Maximas will still be right in style.

But we may see meaningful changes to the '12 that are not noticable from outside the car. Things like an auto-dimming outside right mirror, a modern, functioning TPMS system, individual cooling in the front passenger seat, updated media electronics, maybe a 10 to 16 HP boost, etc. Those would be very nice, but still not leave us regretting having bought earlier.

 

What happened to the White Pearl color? Nissan announced 3 new colors.

 

All I read here was blah blah blah 10 to 16 HP boost.

Priorities, you know?

"16", Hill? That's an oddly specific number.

 

The only thing I see or care about is the black grille. that may make it to my car

 

I first had '15', then remembered Nissan/Infiniti had a nice 306 HP engine in something a few years back (the 'G'?), and I thought that would be an appropriate target for the half-gen. We don't want to go overboard in these austere times, but we would like a measurable increase.

 

Yeah, I'm expecting updates like that for the mid-life refreshing next year. They are basically going to take our current model sales success and just make refinement/improvements to the current vehicles without doing anything too dramatic. Technically, the 2012 should be a the more refined version of the 7G improving upon some of the technical and material glitches they found on the 09-11. It would be nice to see the old 3.5L VQ 306HP engine from Infiniti make its way into the Maxima as well.

Also, if Nissan is smart, they'll get rid of the crappy RS-As as the OEM tires and put a Bridgestone or Michelin Primacy as OEM, like Infiniti did with the M. For price point of the Max and how many of us have had issues with vibrating seats and other vibrations in the car caused by the tires, it be nice for new owners not to have to deal with that.

 

The one thing I would love for the model years to come, that we can have fogs on w/o having the headlights on. I know it's not a big deal but it would be pretty cool.

 

I think your referring to some sort of DRL thing? Why I personally don't care, I wish Nissan and Infiniti would get in line with all the other automakers in this country and put some DRLs on their vehicle. Nissan and Ford are the only ones I think that don't have DRLs still. It would be nice to have some consistency b/c I'm just too stupid and lazy to remember to turn my lights on when its raining outside. DRL = problem solved!

 

Sales success?

The 2009 barely got off dealer lots. At least, that was a common complaint from local dealerships. So I'm guessing, what... it's improved some since they upped the CVT warranty?

 

They have DRL's across their whole lineup in Canada. It's weird.

 

What in Gods name r u talking about? The 2009 and 2010 Maxima have been great sales success. Have you even looked at how bad the 6G Maxima sold. Nissan has been selling between 5-7k units almost every month. Compare to other's in its segement and price range, its doing really well in sales.

 

Rochester is probably referring to when it first came out, the first few months they were not moving them off the lots that fast. Alot of that has to do with the economy as it came out when the economy was starting to tank, but with lots of fleet sales (Hertz and National) as well as good incentives in more recent months its sales has gone up alot.

 

Do you have some numbers, 2008 and 2009?

Maybe it's a local thing. We have 4 Nissan dealerships, and when the 7th gen came out, they couldn't give those things away.

Like I said, I'm guessing from what you wrote that things have improved.

 

Same here, see my post above yours.

 

Right. Interesting timing.

 

I think in Canada they were not allowed to sell the car w/o them.

 

And the winner is . . . Tada . . . FLIP!

DRLs have been required in Canada since the second millenium. There is purpose in that madness; Being farther north, Canada has a 'lower' sun and less-bright days than most of the U.S.

 

The 7th gen Maxima came out (summer 2008) just in time for the collapse of our economy. Sales figures for most non-econobox vehicles of the '09 model year were way down. People were losing jobs by the millions, and millions of those that didn't were not confident of continued employment.

But sales began to pick up for the '09 Maxima around January of 2009, unlike sales of vehicles some might put in the same class as the Maxima. And 7th gen sales have done well ever since. You are correct that the CVT warranty certainly helped.

We have to remember the 6th gen Maxima was still priced as a mass-seller, but the 7th gen was moved up to near-luxury, with sales planned to reach only 60K to 70K, and that was before the economy tanked.

 

Nice try on the Canada is up in the tundra next to Sibera so we don't get much light We get the same amount as most american cities!!!It's a law passed in 1990 for safety reasons to increase the conspicuity of vehicles during daylight hours.It really does make your vehicle stand out more especially on the highway.We've all been on a highway on a blistering hot day and you get that view where the road appears liquid and cars disappear at a distance,not so with DRL's.

 

They better not change the bodystyle...I just got my 2010 Max!

 

You are correct, it has nothing to do with the amount of light...I remember when they passed that law up there, wow 20 years ago already.

 

I remember 1986, when the 3rd brake light legislation was enacted in the States, and manufacturers were jury-rigging solutions on their existing models.

 

Nice try, and the Canadian DRL law may have been passed because DRL bulbs may be manufactured in Canada for all I know.

BUT

Geography clearly tells us Canada gets a LOWER sun (hence DIMMER light) than the average U.S. city.

More exactly, the geographical center of the contiguous 48 states is in Kansas. Witchita Kansas is at latitude 38 degrees. That means that the sun, which can get just over 23 degrees north of the equator at summer solstice, can be as high in the sky as within 15 degrees of straight overhead in Witchita. Miami Florida and Brownsville Texas are at 26 degrees, so the miserably baking sun at those locations can be within 3 degrees of straight overhead.

By contrast, even the southernmost large metropolitan city of Canada (Toronto) is 44 degrees north, which means the sun never gets closer than 21 degrees to being directly overhead in Toronto, and for most of the rest of Canada, including Saskatoon, Calgary, etc, the sun never gets closer to overhead than 30 degrees.

As dim as this is, winter is dimmer. Vancouver, for instance, is at 49 degrees north. At winter solstice, when the sun is over 23 degrees south of the equator, the sun never gets closer than 72 degrees to being directly overhead in Vancouver, which means it never gets more than 18 degrees above the horizon.

The length of days in Canada may be fairly equal to those in the U.S., but the amount of light certainly is not.

And this is not to be construed as any putdown of Canada. I am sick to death of having six or more months of the year with almost every day reaching between 95 and 102 degrees. I think I would prefer enduring the Canadian winters to suffering through south Georgia summers.

 

I see your point light and I was not offended ,the britney spears thing comes into effect where when going to Canada she thinks she's going overseas Yes my Vancouver winters and summers are quite tolerable,summers warm not too hot and mild winter but rainy.There's no way in hell I would, or could handle living in a Phoenix type climate!!!Heart goes out to all you poor southern folk suffering through summer.
I think DRL's are a good thing and all countries should have them,anything for safety is a good thing!!

 

Wow, no one ever needs to doubt light again!

 

I sooo saw that Encyclopedia Lightonthehill response coming.

 

I also feel DRLs could help with safety, because I often see drivers who forgot to turn on their lights when it is raining, or when it is beginning to get dark. I have even seen drivers pull out from a store or service station onto a major six lane boulevard at midnight with no lights on, because the ambient light from street lights and stores was bright enough to make them unaware they were running dark.

My wife and I have several friends living in British Columbia, and my sister and her husband live in Montana. But my very favorite city is Toronto. I could sit out on the waterfront of Lake Ontario all night, watching the lights glistening across the water. I call Toronto the 'City of Glass', because there are so many tall buildings there that have glass exteriors. Victoria, British Columbia would be a close second. Victoria is almost like being in a European city. Of course that could certainly be said of Montreal.

Flip and Compusmurf - Don't be misled. I know nothing about 95% of the things on this earth, and not much more about the other 5%. But I did major in Geophysics, and minored in Astronomy. And Cartography (map making) has been a hobby of mine for over sixty years. I worked part-time at the Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill while in school there, and helped construct their Copernian Orrery. It just so happened that my buddy goog67 brought up the only subject on which I felt semi-informed. My lucky day. Now if I could just figure out how to do my income taxes . . .

Back on topic, my wife and I saw FOUR 7th gen Maximas during a forty minute drive today. They are becoming fairly common around where I live. But none were the 2011 Sport. I am coming up on an oil change, which will give me a half hour or more at my dealer, which time I will spend fawning over their '11 SV-Sports.

 

Alright here are some numbers that I could find.
(I couldn't get anything past 2008 and a part of the 2008 sales were the 7th gen, but here are some numbers)

2009 year sales on the maxima
53,351
2008 year sales on the maxima
47,072
Up to current sales report of July 10
37,864
Up to July sales in 09
27,890
Up to July sales in 08(which should only be 6th gens)
26,134

So from what numbers I could pull it looks like even though the 7th gen got off to a slow start as compaired to how they are selling now, they still look higher than the 2008 sales. If someone else can get numbers from a later date, let's see how the stack up but from what I can see the 7th gen is a sales success.

 

Thought I'd just post some more details

Jan 10 4,016
Jan 09 2,646
Jan 08 3,797

Feb 10 5,301
Feb 09 2,798
Feb 08 4,540

March 10 6,622
March 09 3,431
March 08 4,659

April 10 4,892
April 09 3,901
April 08 2,398

May 10 6,349
May 09 6,082
May 08 3,270

June 10 4,631
June 09 4,560
June 08 2,656

July 10 6,053
July 09 4,472
July 08 4,814

 

^^^
Nicely done, Flip. Assuming you didn't pull those numbers out of your dookie, I stand corrected. The new Maxima is indeed a sales success over the 6.5 gen.

In that it's a significantly improved model, I'm glad to see that. Just wish I'd see more of them around here.

 

I was going to answer, but the guy above you already said what I was going to say. At the time the car came out in 2008, the economy was beginning its downward spiral and car sales began tanking into the toilet. That was not the Maxima's fault since car sales were down for all automakers so there is no reason to try and blame it on the Maxima for being a crappy vehicle as to why it sales were not great at first. But for the last year, year and half say, the sales have been great month after month.

That coincided when sales began improving across the car industry over the last year about.

 

I was thinking the same thing light. The only thing on the exterior I thought Nissan didn't do right was the lower front end of the car. They have all that open up and you see all that metal and stuff underneath and it gives the car an unfinish look when looking at it from the front. I hope that for the 2012 refresh they enclose that so you don't see underneath. They started doing that with the 2010 Altima so I hope that can carry over for the Max refresh.

I know a Nissan stealer over in PA that for about 100 bucks will but a chrome plated mesh like thing over the openings that covers it all up so you don't see the manifold or that metal looped hook thing.

 

Good observation. The grill doesn't work for me either. But one of the things that really seems goofy is the little piece of plastic glued to the wrap around on the rear bumper. It just looks wrong, like a design after-thought tacked on at the last minute. Dumb.

But those are the only two external design flaws I have with the car, both of which are insignificant nits and easily addressed. Otherwise, the car is freaking gorgeous. Always thought so.

 

Agree completely. I said the same thing to myself when I noticed it during the test drives and while looking at the car on Sunday afternoons but felt I could live with those minor flaws b/c the rest of the car was just so damn gorgeous that no one, except for me, would notice any of those things.

 

Hi All:
New here as I'm looking to upgrade from an Altima to a Maxima.

Did I read this right from the Texas Nissan website???
SEATS AND TRIM
- - -
Split folding rear seat

I've been looking at the 2010 Maxima SV w Sport or Premium packages and both have rear buckets seats which takes away the 60/40 split rear seat fold down/ Could it be possible that the 2011 will have them fold down like the S and non sport/premium packages? I may just wait for the 2011 Sport to come out here in NJ if that is the case then - it's the only downside I have found in getting the sport or premium packages - especially with the trunk being smaller that the Altima (need the extra space for future "family" needs)

ETA: I'm kind of disappointed with those headlamps though - I was expecting the entire housing to be "smoked out" as the press release have described - it somewhat reminds me of Spider-Man's outfit =(

 

It will most likely not be 60/40, bc the sport and premium package maximas have trunk reinforcemnet, so the 60/40 rear seat would actually get in the way of that.

 

^ that is correct. If you get either the sports or premium package the 60/40 rear split seat gets deleted. The only way you get it, is by either getting the base S or SV with just the cold and technology packages.

 

so I called up my local dealer parts and Courtesy Parts and it looks like October before we can get '11 parts. I hope the people who answered the phones are wrong and it is sooner. That grille is calling me

I can see people with '11 cars ordering '09-'10 headlights. ...way to go Nissan

 

At nearly $700 a pop, you see people swapping their headlamps so they can have a little black outline inside the lens?