I'm about to hit 110,00 miles on my fully loaded 03 SE. I plan on keeping it for at least another 2 years. At the rate I'm going, I drive 20K-23K miles a year so you guys can do the math yourselves. If the car is still in good shape in 2 years, I'll keep driving it. I'd rather put money towards an investment that will appreciate (i.e. a house) than a car that looses value the instant you look at it.

 

Good to hear and not just because he is a Nissan Tech. When I used to get my oil changes done a Nissan Dealership up in Edmonton, Alberta, another tech mentioned something similar with a few of his customers driving the 4, 5, or 5.5 running well over 300kms and only requiring general maintenance.

Going to head back to my parents place for the long weekend up here and will be changing out my spark plugs since they have all the tools. Got a cool write up from another Nissan forum and it should take me a few hours. I really want to look at the condition at my current plugs as it should tell me a lot of things in regards to the state of my engine. I hope I will not trip any sensors.

Keep the stories coming Maxima gurus.

 

Changed out my spark plugs and the glad there were no hiccups. Starts up smooth and continues to pull strong. Condition of the plugs appeared to be all consistent with no significant carbon build up. Good sign. However, taking a pic a pic of the collector, there appears to be oil burnt stains in every second port as you can see below.





Any ideas of signs of things to come for my VQ?

 

I wish I had as good of luck as you guys. My 99' I30 seemingly falls apart and she's been babied her entire life and only has 57k miles. I had both tie rods wear out on me, CV boots gone, Oil leak, A/c Compressor, Both rear break calipers lock up. Probably just crappy luck.
But on the bright side she's never not started when I needed her, always comforting to know that Vq's going to turn over for me when I need it

 

Good god clean all that sand out of your bay. that isnt going to help your car live longer.

FWIW least on my car the oil will sit on the bottom of the manifold.
Totally normal.........

Oh yeah and BTW 125k is nothing for these.

I buy max's @ 125k or more.

My VQ was probley in its prime when i swapped her out at 190k for a 3.5

 

My '01 Max marks the 14th Nissan I've owned. This one only has 104K on it, but my '97 Altima has a touch over 237K. Seems like Nissans hit a bottom resale value and stay. Since the wife bought a new car a few weeks ago, I have to sell the Altima. I will be asking $1800 for it but will come down to $1500 if it comes to that.

Several of my Nissans have hit 200K and kept going. Yes a few of the V6's, but I am a firm believer in the 2.4 Nap-Z engine, not particularly powerful, but bulletproof.

 

Ahn yung ha say yo? I do not hear of many Koreans living in Minnesota. As for the sand, yah, this pic was taken when I took the cover off. When I put it back on today, I did clean it up

Drove the car around a bit more on the highway and cleaned up my K&N. So far everything appears to be normal.

Any ideas on the oil discolouration on the collector since you have more experience with the VQ than I do?

 

Keep the car if it's not causing any problems, you won't get much by selling it.

 

I don't like all the rattling and creeking that can happen with age, otherwise, if it's serving well, why sell? It's a buyers market right now, anyway.

 

I know what you mean. This is one thing that so impresses me with the car. The only squeek/rub that I hear is from the ceiling cover under the sunroof but that is very minor.

 

mines at 194K but i wanna sell to get a new car

 

Sell

 

Men, sell. I plan on driving my max till it gets to 200k, then sell. As long as you maintanin a car from 0 miles to 200k, then it would be good to pass it on to someone else. Except you had plans of hitting 300k with the car. Then, its your goal. Go hit it.

 

Still not finding a good used FX35 with tech package. Damn. Yah, I am going to get something newer (06 and up) but my plan is to park my car at my parents place and whoever needs a ride, they can use it. I trust it more than the two domestics that my parents currently drive. Nice to have a highway vehicle too but I guess when it does go well over 200K, I guess I will keep a close eye it as other things may give up.

One thing I recently noticed it that fuel mileage has collapsed. I used to get 570KMs with a quarter tank remaining but now I am only getting 500KMs. . Did that tune up thing a few weeks back hoping that would help but it didn't. I suspect one or few of my 02 sensors are screwed and may decide to change all of them out. Going to have to check out ebay or some .org vendor if I can get a bulk deal on them.

I might just for curiosity take my car to a local infiniti dealer just to see what I can get for my car but I might as well bend over backward right now.

 

I say keep it if it's running well...

 

keep

 

ttt

 

Keep it, I have 126K miles on my 03, and other than slight oil burning .5 quarts in 3K miles there is nothing wrong with the car. Also this is my second Maxima, the first was 95 that I sold at 178K miles, with absolutely no problems.