...and glad I did!!

Bought the car on 2/8/2003 at 1:04PM Pacific time. (Best day of my life, so far.)

What a car it has been these past weeks. Although I am still trying to get the smooth shifting down (first real car with a 5 speed transmission), it is faster than it looks.

I already have put a K&N panel filter in it, removed the front Nissan badge off the grill, put in some new Hella 80W/100W headlights (planning on relaying them soon) and fixed a broken fog light. Other than that, the car is stock (and looking pretty good.)

The interior is perfect--no scratches, tears, rips, major holes, or anything else that would make you say "AAH!" Now I just need some decent floormats and a nice sound system. The stock Kenwood tape deck with detachable faceplate just isn't cutting it. It's also too bad that my Dad backed down our driveway with the antenna up, caught it on a ledge above and bent it. He tried straigthening it out, but failed as it broke a few days later. Now I have semi-shoddy reception as I pulled the antenna up, crimped it at each section and disconnected the power.

The exterior is OK; what you would expect out of a 11 year old car? Other than a repainted hood that is hard to spot (other than the orange peel texture on the hood) and a few rock dings on the fenders, everything is perfect.

Paid a little over $4k for it and what a deal. Plus, it being the best looking 3rd gen VE that I have seen for sale in the Seattle area that has a reasonable number of miles on it (just over 141k) and no major maintenance (ie. engine rebuild, trans problems, etc) was a dream come true. I would have been happy with a VG 5sp, but the VE came in time. I am so glad that I waited nearly 3 months for it too.

This forum has been a very valuable asset to me over the past few months, and will continue being the forum for any Maxima-oriented issues that I may run into.

 

post up some pics of it

stereowise, go for a new deck first. hows the speakers? Depends on how good of a stereo your lookin for; i had problems with my bose system plus i simply wanted a better sounding system... see page 3 on my homepage for my setup

 

The car has the stock Bose speakers in the front (they sound pretty good if you ask me) and two Alpine 6x9's in the back which are much better speakers, IMO.

I'm thinking about an Alpine 9803 or 9805 deck for the car. What do you guys think would be a good deck in that price range? How would you best spend your "limited"-highschool-senior-with-part-time-job funds? Especially with gas prices going through the roof (and no sign of driving miles decreasing), I will not have very much money to spend on the car soon.

 

Depends on which of the 3 S' youre looking for. Speed, Sound, or Style.

 

good chioce in the array of 3rd gens avalible. it took me about 6 months to find one but i wasnt going to settle for anything less i have the alpine 7893 in mine alittle expensive unless you get stuff for cost but alot of features and it works good

 

Congrats on finding a VE 5 speed, they are becoming a rare breed. Take care of her

 

Hmm from washinton. Where did you find it? Color?

 

Original owner lives up in Marysville, but was kind enough to drive down to their parent's house in Factoria. I live in Burien/South Seattle (basically west of the airport.)

The car is Ruby Pearl on gray upholstry interior.

 

Wow. How much did you pay(if I can ask)? I'm looking to replace my totalled 1992 5-sp(modded) also.

 

 

Oops. I really meant to ask how he saw the ad. Seattle Times, autotrader etc..

If you want me to run the vin(if you haven't already), I can do it for you free.

 

Kind of late, isn't it? Or are you just trying to rid the bad karma that is your CarFax account?

 

Well in a way, it's too late but everyone is curious about their own car. Plus for free, why not?

 

So it is the karma isn't it?