Took off for the weekend and my destination got 13 cm of new snow. They hadn't even cleaned up from the last storm yet. The rental car lady kept telling me subcompact no good for storm, you upgrade. I kept saying no upgrade, no gaz refill, and no insurance. NO!!! She kept saying yes, I kept saying no. Finally she gave me the Grand Am with Traction control for about $16 per day.

Even though the interior was not that well designed, it was impressive that the car had ZERO rattles at about 14,000 miles. I got used to a car with no strange noises and no dings either. Popped the hood and it had a V-6, coolant was good for 150,000 miles. Daytime running lamps went on when you moved the tranny lever, or when you released the brake. Interesting that this bad boy didn't have a passenger air bag (shed any light on where I went??). Using defrost didn't automatically kick the a/c.

It was weird, when I got back into my '98 SE here we go again, the steering felt like it was so loose and overassisted, and the brakes were soft as jello. I think that's the japanese way, to make everything soft and effortless at the expense of feel. My car feels like a dinosaur compared to any of the 2000-2001 rentals that I get.

Anyway, when the day is done I'm not sure what the traction control actually does. The wheels still spun if I didn't accelerate gently, only a low traction light would turn on. Never did get stuck though, and it was fun to see the speedo at 135-140. What a shame it was km/hr!! hehe

 

I don't think that it's the "japanese way" to have soft brakes... it's the maxima way no doubt. With regards to the losing feeling comment... i think it's mainly in this class of car. Get in an Integra or a IS300 for example, the road feel etc will be there. The problem is even though nissan tries to market the car as a sports sedan, all the sport was lost with we got the 3rd gen. Sure it's got a great engine, but 1/2 of "sport" is in the suspension, with the beam in the back, the sport was really gone.

-Shing