Hey Buds,

Long time owner of maximas and have grown accustom to the 3.5 vq motor and many of nissans quirks.

Looking at the 7th gen as i really like this body style.

There are a few for sale in my area and wanted to know

What should i look out for when considering a purchase

• How's the motor compared to the older 3.5?
• How many miles can i get out of the Tranny?
• What quirks require attention in this model?

Thanks for your input...

 

For the tranny, you can get a lot of miles out of it as long as you keep up with maintenance and don't drive it like a racecar. Try and get an idea of the previous owner's driving habits if you can. I've seen people start getting problems around the 120-140k mark and I've also seen 200k+ on the OG trans.

Quirks...the only thing I can think of is there's no way to open the trunk from the outside if your car battery dies or you get locked out, so keep your cables somewhere handy.

 

Thansk man~

• How long have you owned your 7th gen?
• What 'work' have you done to it?

appreciate it....

 

About a year now. This part of the forums seems pretty dead so figured I'd share what I've picked up from others' experiences here and on Facebook.

As far as mine...nothing super crazy. Pretty much everything I've done is cosmetic. 3-step paint correction, ceramic spray coating, rear window tint 35%, vinyl wrapped the door handles & some of the window trim, plastidipped the rims (stock 18s) Anthracite Grey, wrapped the grille, LED foglights, changed tail lights to the stock 2012-14 clear lens smoked red lights (mine were red lenses), and installed aftermarket black headlights with an LED daytime running light. Next project is installing a switch for the LED bar next to the key fob port.

Inside, did a sticky/sun rotted dashboard repair, new floor mats, installed a dashcam, changed interior, trunk, and license plate lights to LED. Hoping to eventually get a remote start kit.

Under the hood...really just cleaned it up and changed the trans fluid. I have a mass air flow code I need to take care of but other than that, car runs great.

Other common things I've seen done, lowering springs, Stillen front bumper lip, black billet grille, custom headlights with painted housing, color changing halos, and sequential turn signals (I'm not a fan of the light shows but to each their own), muffler/resonator deletes, rear diffuser, Stillen air intake, speaker upgrades, motordyne exhaust. And of course rim upgrades. 19" wheels look great on these cars, 20" too but you might need low profile tires. Anything bigger looks kinda tacky but again...it's your car so give it the look you want.

If you REALLY love this car...some people do a 6-speed swap to get rid of the CVT...but that's a big expensive project sometimes worth more than the car. So just take care of it and you'll have a good time.

What color is yours? Maybe I can send you some builds I've seen to point you in the right direction.

 

Nice...i like the Black Color.

NO..i don't own one yet. I still have my 5th gen. I'm looking right now for 7th gen. Price, condition, etc. I WAS EVEN considering purchasing one with a Blown Motor (but, thats a PIA to rebuild).

Thanks again

 

Ah right. 5th gen is my second favorite gen. I'd get one that's up and running if I were you. These cards don't hold value well so you should be able to get a good price. Mine was a salvage (rear end collision) so I got it for $5k. For a 2012 SV with 77k miles...it's the best price I've seen so far but anything in the 7-8k range is good too. I'd try to stay under 100k miles and get a test drive in to feel out the transmission.

 

It's a great daily driver if it was maturely driven by the previous owner(s) and property maintained (not very common these days unfortunately). %80 of car owners on the roads are morons these days.

Proper maintenance = regular transmission fluid changes and engine oil

 

INDEED (and unfortunately).

That's why i would even get a Junker with low miles.

 

That's it..............???

NO further things to look for when buying a 7th gen?

 

Look for maintenance records, if missing, pass it by and keep looking. My 09 has documented paperwork on everything that was ever done to it.

 

Why pass it by?

You can get the best deals on cars that need work. 300% of the cost discount off sales price. You just have to know this car~

 

It's definitely better to know the car wasn't neglected for 100k miles, but if it runs well no reason not to jump on a good price. You should change all your fluids/filters anyway when you get a used vehicle.

 

I got my 2012 SV Crimson Black from an auction 76,000 miles for $5000. Did a CarFax on it to get a sense of history. It had a couple minor accidents and a salvage title, but the owner after seemed to do regular oil changes and had it for a while. The auction I bought from is pretty good at putting in the description if there's known things wrong, like won't start or check engine light on, or bad transmission. There was nothing on this one, so I went for it. It was more than I expected because I didn't know it had leather seats and was loaded with wonderful luxuries inside. I took it to my favorite mechanic that I've know for 20+ years and he did a safety check and replaced a control arm that was bent, the brakes, a couple tires and an alignment. It rides so smooth now. I love love love it.

 

Wow. This is my exact story down to the year, mileage, trim, price, and color. I bought mine in a private sale (risky I know), but the guy told me it was rear ended and had a salvage title. All the repairs looked good and the car ran well on a short test drive so I bought it right away before someone else jumped on the steal. It passed salvage inspection & safety inspection. Just got her some new tires and did my tyranny service. A year later she runs perfect. Months after the purchase I got the carfax just out of curiosity, and I saw the previous owner took very good care of it; took it to the dealer every 10k miles for all service. The car was in I believe 3 accidents, 2 fender benders and the rear end total loss. Sometimes I just sit in there wondering how I landed it for $5k. I wasn't even looking for something nice, didn't have a "dream car" in mind, just something to get me from point A to B.

Just thought it was funny, when I saw this comment at first I thought I posted it at some point and forgot about it congrats on the ride!

 

I wasn't looking for a one either, rather I was hoping for a 4 wheel drive truck. I can't afford those, and this car turned out to be a prize inside with it's stereo system, and the push button start; the instant purring of the engine.

How can I bring up the luster in the exterior finish? Yours looks beautiful.

 

Thanks, last summer I gave it a full machine compound and polish and topped it with the Turtle Wax ceramic spray coating. Their Hybrid Solutions line has some great consumer-grade products for gloss and protection. In that pic I had just used their Wash & Wax and Wet Wax.



Had a lot of free time over the pandemic so I watched a ton of detailing videos and tried my hand at it for the first time. Gonna try a true 3-5 year ceramic coating in the spring.

 

Nice! I just YouTubed how to, so I see a future project upcoming. Mine definately needs some some love. I need to do some touch up first as soon as the weather gets a little better. It's got a couple bumps and bruises but once the paint's touched up, it won't be so noticeable. I found a matching paint source at colorndrive.com.

Thank you for your advice on the finish. My other car needs some polish too!

 

 

Lookin good! I like those black door panels.

I'm still doing some touchups here and there. Some (if not all) of the panels were repainted so I'm going to do a light wetsand on a few of them to get rid of that orange peel texture before locking it in.

 

Thanks, I like the two tone interior black with beige. I ordered some carpeted floor mats that have the same. Looking forward to decent weather so I can get started on the outside. I have a barn but no garage.

 

Barn sounds great...our garage is so filled up with tools and material there's no space to do anything on the car. These are the floor mats I went with

 

I bought my 09 one year ago this month. It had 111,000 miles. I paid 7.5k I absolutely love this car! I get a lot of compliments and head turns.

 

Nice! I'm looking forward to getting mine in. I'll post a pic when i do.

 

Looks great! Love the black grill.

 

Thanks. i'm debating painting the rims black but i kinda like it the way it is. I am gonna tint my head and tail lights some time this summer.

 

Love those sport rims, trying to get my hands on some. I would definitely paint them, I think they look great black or dark grey.

 

I know they would look awesome black but I’m thinking if I do that I would then have to black out the chrome and tint the windows for the full blackout effect. I just kinda like the chrome with the silver rim look. Decisions decisions

 

I didn't want a full blackout so I went with anthracite/gunmetal grey. If you want there's a product called plastidip you can spray on them. If you don't like it you can just peel it off. There's also hyperdip which is basically the upgraded version (more glossy, more slick, more durable).

 

My rims have some curb rash that was there when I bought the car and I'm thinking of plastidipping them to make them look better. I like the look of the hyperdip anthracite gunmetal grey. Nice to still have some contrast but on the darker side.

 

I just sanded the rash down with my polisher + 600 grit and threw the plastidip on top. Looks like it was never there. Going 5 months, a month of snow and salt and still looks fresh.
I put clear coat on top of one of them to test. It tracks less dirt, but on another go-round I'll probably switch to hyperdip to take care of that. Meguiar's ultimate wheel cleaner is safe on them.

I think they're making a gloss hyperdip in anthracite so might want to wait on that.


(rear has clear coat, front doesn't)

 

Yeah, that looks nice BlackCrimson!

 

NIce! Sounds like a plan.

 

My mats came in today. I think they look great. I'm still working on cleaning the carpet in the front drivers side, so please don't look to closely.

 

Awesome, those look really classy. You mind dropping the link for them? I was thinking about getting summer mats.

And don't mention the carpets...when I got mine the carpets in the rear were filthy. I got some carpet cleaner aerosol and a drill attachment brush, sprayed generously, loosened up the dirt and absorbed it out with a towel accordingly.

 

Wow, that did the trick. I had used our carpet cleaner with the spot cleaner attachment, but I was thinking that I would need to use some shampoo like you were saying. Here's the link https://www.ebay.com/itm/223257498282 They are a not a "carpet" mat but are a fabric type. And the bottom has a prickly grip that keeps it in place well.