Hey guys. How does the suspension differ from the SV Premium to the Sport model? Stiffer springs, sway bar, strut bars?

 

The Sport has a bigger front sway bar, "sport tuned" shocks and I believe stiffer springs, also the rear seats don't fold down, for further chassis stiffening!

 

Really, I thought there was no difference between the two..hmm!

 

The Premium package seats doesn't fold down also, well mine doesn't

 

Which is. Huge pain in the ***!

 

Ya wish my back seats folded down...

A larger rear sway bar is Definitely needed on the Sport models. They under steer easily.

 

Ah gotcha!!

 

Is the handling in the sport model noticeably different than the premium?

 

I drove a 2012 base model last week with about 30k miles on it. It felt the same

 

Finding a good alignment shop can remedy the understeer. Most passenger vehicles are set up to understeer first. The average driver can react and correct an understeer situation easier then oversteer...

 

Drivers of the Nissan Maxima are not average drivers.

 

Every car I've owned until this one came with either split folding rear seats or a folding rear seat.

Although this was a nice feature, it was very rarely used. My old GTI was great when I needed to haul my drums around to various places back in my rock and roll days, but when those days came to an end, I noticed that I rarely, if ever, needed to fold my seats.

My last car was an 05 Accord with a folding, one piece rear seat. People were griping up a storm about the fact that it wasn't a split folding unit, but I always thought that was silly because I had never used a split folding rear seat the way it was supposed to be used. First, the person sitting next to a folded seat back would be uncomfortable and second, I never had a reason to put anyone back there when hauling lots of stuff.

When I got my Maxima Sport Tech, I thought I'd be okay because my wife has an SUV. And I have been. However, to date, I've still not really needed to use her truck instead of the max.

It isn't a pickup truck (which I can rent for like $30 a day if I need it) and I don't need one.

I went to costco with the wife and we had a huge haul. We still managed to fit everything in the trunk, save for the paper towels (which we just put in the back seat).

Are people really in need of hauling a ton of stuff AND more than one passenger? Maybe I'm just missing something, but to me, this hasn't been a problem ever once in the 7 months I've had the car. If it ever was, I'd either use the wife's SUV or rent something on the cheap.