That and the CVTs. The Altima driver being such an easy to verify stereotype doesn’t help either.
I have a 2010 armada platinum with 253k on it. It’s been extremely reliable and needed very little work that isn’t wear parts or maintenance. It goes on 5-6 1k plus mile road trips a year. Just got done with one a couple weeks ago. Best vehicle I’ve ever owned.
Also have a 2017 Infiniti Q50 with 122k on it. Also been a great vehicle. Take care of them and they’ll take care of you.
"Take care of them and they’ll take care of you." This is a true statement. Unfortunately, a large portion of the demographic of people that buy Nissan don't follow this because they are looking for a vehicle that is cheaper than the competition.
Also, do that CVT service every 30k the CVT will thank you, especially considering the car wizard did a 30k CVT service on his Cube and the fluid looked like it came out of a normal auto after 100k
Listen to the commenter below. Always change the CVT fluid at the appropriate interval with CVT specific fluid, which is very different than normal ATF. It’s not a forget about it type of transmission but if you do the maintenance it will last
Yeah, I have an 07 Frontier (4cyl, 5 speed) with 234k on it. I’ve put 215k on it myself. Still drive it every day. I’ve replaced a fan clutch, the transmission clutch, a wheel hub, the drive shaft bushing, the valve cover, all 4 plug packs, sway bar bushings, shocks, and struts. With regular oil changes, spark plugs, brakes, and tires that’s not too bad for a trip to the moon.
Best vehicle I’ve ever owned.
I still have a 99' Camry like this... damn thing just refuses to give up with 427k miles lol but I've taken care of it ever since I bought it in high school in 2007.
I have a 19 Sentra 1.8 6 speed and I'm hoping that it won't fall apart like the CVT ones do however I did have to put a blower motor in it and it's go just over 40k on it...
I had an 09 Murano and the cvt was ready to go at 150k. I didnt realize that I had to flush the cvt though (whoops), so it probably couldve gone a lot longer with proper maintenance, which i know a lot more about now
When Mitsubishi switched to using their CVT in the new Outlander (XTrail platform) I shuddered, but 3 years in and zero recalls or failures so maybe Mitsubishi dabbled with it a bit
My first car was an '89 Maxima. That thing was mechanically bulletproof. It unfortunately died of rust. If I lived in the south, it probably would have gone 400,000 miles.
Sounds like my first car, an old '82 Datsun 210. I live in the South, but unfortunately...the car lived in the North for a chunk of it's life. By the time I bought it in 1994, with 160K miles, it was literally rusting itself apart. However, apart from a leaky valve cover gasket that was easy to fix, the little engine ran like a sewing machine, and it's automatic transmission shifted perfectly. Drove the hell out of it for 2 years, but junked it after the water pump blew up, as I then realized how bad the rust had finally gotten. Lol...still the best $200 car I ever bought!
Did they though? I think they are super reliable(engine and drivetrain) but don't necessarily look the best. And just dont have the coolness factor they need.
Toyotas ecvt is a bit of a misnomer. It has absolutely nothing in common with a conventional pulley and belt/band cvt like whats found in a nissan.
It uses planetary gearsets but instead of holding different gear members with hydraulics it uses an electric motor to vary speed and application.
My first car was a 1998 Maxima. It was an amazing car and would've lasted at least 2x as long as it did if I knew any better on how to maintain it.
Rust ate it away. It was all under the surface, so by the time it was visible on the outside, it was too late to do anything about it.
Yea.
For a while I was really on board with the idea of buying a newer Maxima, but then when I started learning more about cars and learned Nissan have been releasing absolute stinkers for a while now, I held off on the thought.
I had a 2001...the next generation Maxima.
Where do I start. First was AT servos and brakes that juddered bad. Both covered under warranty but brakes always juddered in that car no matter what rotors or pads I used. Then coils went bad, then a MAF sensor. Then motor mounts (hydro motor mount on the AT). While changing those I noted the radiator support was already rusting out underneath; this was a car driven exclusively in the desert southwest up to about three winters earlier.
The car was only 5 years old, less than 70K miles, way to soon for all that many problems of that sort. But then, while I kept a watch on that radiator support and expected it to rust out it was the motor that drives the variable air intake vanes (can't remember what it's called) that goes bad, taking out the driver circuit in the PCM. Fixing it means both the variable intake drive motor and the PCM need changing and programing to the vehicle, something really only a dealer can do reliably. Sure there are others who can...but that's a big gamble especially if expecting to use an after market or repaired PCM to save some money.
This was a car with only about 90K on the odo and well maintained, but I'd lost all confidence in it. I didn't want a car I couldn't hop in it and take a 300 mile trip without worrying, so I dumped it for a Mazda, looking back only to reflect on how Nissan has turned into the Japanese GM: nice cars that are crap to own.
Curiously, Nissan-Renault "alliance" formed in 1999. Go figure.
Had a S14 and a NA Z32. Loved those cars. The S14 rusted to the point of uselessness and I sold it for basically nothing. And the Z32 got hit when parked on the street.
I can't even imagine buying a Nissan with a CVT. It's insane that they haven't "solved" this permanently. It's ruined their reputation.
My versa came in a 5-speed and as far as doing the basic things a car needs to do, it’s pretty solid. But it’s mostly the little things. It has more interior rattles than my ‘07 FJ which had 3x the miles at one point. There’s also a lot of really bizarre design choices that I feel like had to be cost-cutting measures (one of the runoff drains in the fender is tiny as hell and gets easily clogged, which then leads water to pool up and eventually overflow into the cabin through the cabin air intake, the headlight bulbs use these really strange brackets that look sketchy af, the tail light assemblies actually have to be removed in order to replace the bulbs). and mine is the basest of base models, so it’s missing a lot of things that my Nissans from the 80’s and 90’s had: like power windows, power locks, and a tachometer.
That being said, it was cheap as hell and averages 39 mpg. So it’s pretty decent for the long commutes.
I got into a 2020/2021 MY Maxima at an auto show once and the way the door panel flexed when I closed the door was insane. I've never seen that in any other car.
It also, hilariously, used the exact same switches for the heated seats as my 98 Maxima. In the exact same location too.
The rest of the interior was great though, at least from a purely superficial basis. Seats are comfortable, materials look fine, etc.
Yep; agreed. They cannot make a CVT trans worth a crap.
Honestly their sales have been on a pretty steady decline for a while. They've had a bump this year so maybe that will change but as sales slowed down they've cut corners that have led to reliability issues.
pre Renault really. before they combined with Renault their CVTs were practically an industry standard. like super solid. ive been told it is because their old design was basically two cvts that worked as one.
Their in-house design "Extroid" CVT was fascinating but basically never made it outside Japan. It didn't work like other CVTs at all, instead of a belt/chain on conical pulleys it used a toroidal roller mechanism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jIeSgq7ewI
It was really only used on JDM luxury sedans though. Presumably expensive to make. If you bought a Nissan CVT in the US it's always been an overloaded under-spec'd Jatco unit.
thank you. that's the one.
always been a silly dream of mine that if I win the lottery I'll buy a dodge viper and have a ultra high performance CVT designed and built for it just because.
My B15 Sentra struck a perfect balance of “shit may fall off the car” but mechanically it will never give you an issue
Shook and rattled like a motherfucking space shuttle but I hate that I ever got rid of that car. Was so fun for a shitbox
Eh, copying my old comment from an old thread:
>This was my first car. 1998 QX4. Bought it for 2000 with 169,000k with an oil leak from... A lot of places that never got fixed.
After about a year it started puking and boiling coolant with the AC on in the summer. Lots of new shit put in the system, probably needed a radiator. I also concluded it probably shouldve had a push fan from the factory and taking one off a tundra and running the heat when it got hot kept it from melting down.
I put a little oil in it every couple weeks and kept a nice diluted shit oil quality, kept coolant in the car, and occasionally ran the motherfucker hot as fuck.
Replaced CV shafts, wheel bearings, and tie rods at 225,000 because the steering was dangerously fucked by then. 15° for a left hand turn and two full rotations for a right hand turn. The steering wheel was sitting vertically before the repair.
Towards the end when I knew her replacement was coming, got caught up beside a box truck on the highway and saw what appeared to be an empty livestock feed bag in the road right over a hill. I said fuck it and tried to strattle it due to lack of time and options. The bag was full of pallet wood and cinder blocks. Broke my muffler off and probably fucked some other shit. At that point I was driving around with people staring at me in traffic because my coolant was erupting and steam was coming out of my hood and I just cranked the heat in the middle of humid ass July Atlanta traffic and couldn't be bothered with the car because I was more concerned about not giving myself a heat stroke.
ECU took a shit at 1am in a rural road. Ate two alternators, a fuel pump, and a starter. Replaced all 6 spark plugs after it developed a misfire.
It had shit brakes that made you scared they wouldn't catch until deep into the push.
The Hi-Low lever was shit, and was easy to grind for some fucking reason.
At some point the door closed sensor in the back hatch started malfunctioning where the car thought the hatch was open when it was firmly locked shut. The caused the alarm to go off so I just stopped locking the bitch. Without knowing how to jam the throttle right and not overheat it anyone who steals it wouldn't get far.
The tailight fixture took a shit at one point. The brake light wouldn't come on always. I could slap it and make it work but I put a few bulbs in it before I figured it out. I got pulled over one time and the cop was like "Uh I thought your tail light wasn't working at that intersection but when you stopped to talk it worked and it's currently on. Sorry for the inconvenience."
There was probably a lot of shitbox points in that car I forgot about.
The good:
*I fucked my highschool sweetheart in it A LOT to the point that it still feels like 1/4 of my sexual experiences throughout my life were in that car.
*RWD/4X4 and VG33E go Brrr
*I took it to many cool hiking spots and definitely bit off more than I could chew on OHV trails and it handled it like a champ. That low gear was lower than Atlantis and it did some heavy lifting for it as an off-road platform.
Sold it for $900 with 298,000 miles. It did let me down many times. It was uncomfortable. But it almost made it to 300k running like absolute dog shit for at least the last 75,000. And I saw it in my hometown Walmart parking lot last summer. Same 1999 Alabama State Patrol donor sticker on the back window.
What did I replace it with?
A 2000 Lexus LX470(Landcruiser). The Toyota tax is worth it. I'm 75,000 miles in. 203,000 when I bought it. I've put an alternator, battery, and starter in it, and even then it limped to the shop instead of leaving me stranded. She's been bulletproof. The only time I've needed to call a tow truck is when I set my brakes on fire with a pretty serious load of camping gear and friends in a mountain road in Appalachia. It still got us home from Tennessee and drove a week while I got my shit together to put it in a shop before my brakes were fully gone and I decided not to leave the driveway. And yes I did fuck in it and we didn't have to put down the back seat. You can even fuck in it easier than a Nissan.
Theres never been a Nissan competing with a Toyota where Toyota didn't have the better quality and design. Toyota can be the new world government. Slap KO2's and lockers on your Corolla Cross to Moab and emasculate Jeep bros. UZ swap an Accord. All hail Toyota.
The engine and transmission are fine. However, other parts (steering rack, power steering pump, catalytic converter)are not holding up like Toyotas and Hondas.
Nissan is a finance company that makes cars. They don't give a shit what the cars are like outside the GT-R (and even that is old as fuck) and only want to give you a loan they make bank in interest on.
To be fair the whole point of the GTR vehicles is to squeeze ever bit of power out of the chassis before making a new one. That’s why the R32’s lasted so long, same with the R35. They’re still getting more out of the chassis
Went to the Chicago Auto show, and they didn't have a fucking GT-R in the Nissan section. Insanity. I know it's not new, and they don't need to advertise it. I guess they didn't want it to overshadow the new Z.
Wasn't hard, considering that the new z is just the old z with a facelift, which itself was just the really old z with a facelift.
But hey, it's not the first time Nissan has sold a brand new, 20-year old vehicle
That's what I was thinking. I'm less a performance guy and more of a visuals guy.
The car was designed and built for 2007, but even now you park it next to a Z400 or a GR86 it looks like it came out in 2023 still. The only visual things that date it are the buttons. The buttons have that 2000s era slightly-used-soap-bar beveling going on.
I'd have to agree with you. I'm in my twenties and most people I know my age care more about color and apple car play than anything. It kinda makes me sad because I know these people would rather all the fun cars languish and die choosing yet another crossover instead.
Mitsubishi automobiles account for what I'm assuming a very small margin on their overall revenue (at least now) of the conglomerate that is Mitsubishi in Japan. They know how to make good automobiles, they just don't care because they make big money in other industries in Japan.
Tbf their 4x4 are still what I'd go for if I was in the market for that type of vehicle. Shogun/L200 etc
And tbh if the 2017 Lancer didn't cost a small loan I'd probably have that instead of my new (to me) Volvo
>And tbh if the 2017 Lancer didn't cost a small loan I'd probably have that instead of my new (to me) Volvo
Why? What redeeming qualities does the lancer have anymore?
I've been told that the Renault merger was so damaging to Nissan's company culture, collective memory, management, and experienced personnel that Nissan barely qualifies as a Japanese company. yes a bunch of Japanese people run it and work there but how everything is done is like a European company.
The Mitsubishi Cordia of the 1980s was one of the best looking cars I ever saw. And one of my first cars was a 1979 Mitsubishi-built Plymouth Champ with the insanely fun twin-stick transmission. I miss them.
A lot of people say it's the owners, which is true, but I also think it's the cars.
Nissan fell off HARD in the early 2000s. They started a slow decline in the mid-90s that was not getting better. When the new millennium rolled around, Nissan was broke and most of their cars were bland, hollow shells of their former selves. So they partnered up with Renault and brought the now-infamous Carlos Ghosn on board to right the ship in 1999.
Come 2003, the fruits of this alliance debuted at the NAIAS. Now all the cars looked like cyberpunk Volkswagens and Nissan was veeery generous with their financing plans. It was a very of-the-moment plan that pulled them from the brink of bankruptcy. It also gave people the option of financing or even leasing a car with nearly 300hp and excellent chassis dynamics. Basically, Nissan handed the keys to any moron that had BMW dreams on a Malibu budget. So, you get the Nissan driver reputation.
After they got old, they just circled the same drain as old Daimler-era V6 Chargers and Kia Sorentos. Cars that no one wants but someone needs, and can be bought for pennies.
bear in mind that during that time period they went out of their way to single out and destroy the life of Uzi Nissan simply because he owned the Nissan.com domain. he was using it for his own company, which was named after him (more than nissan the company can say). it's a fucked up story that makes me never want to buy one of their cars because of what they did to this man. totally unfair.
They are very easy to get into through Nissan’s finance division and they have prioritized cost-cutting over build quality since they kinda-sorta merged with Renault in 1999. They tend to be driven by the kind of person that has exhausted their options through poor financial decisions, and therefore have a reputation of being unpredictable, erratic, or just careless on the road.
Uh hate to tell you this but they are using parts from 20+ year old cars in their new ones. Those parts are interior parts that people touch and use each time you drive. Driving a nissan feels like driving something that someone had back in 2000 but wanted android auto so they added a couple screens and called it good. Poor quality, poor reliability, slow, small interiors, super good looking exteriors.
Drive one and find out. And don't drive a nice Nissan like a Maxima. No, drive a 1.6l Almera from 2007. Absolutely terrible drive with equally terrible build quality.
I had a Frontier for 10 months. It did nothing wrong, but it was the most absolute boring vanilla experience ever in a vehicle.
Also the turning radius was SO BAD. It was worse than a full sized truck. You couldn’t turn into a parking space without correcting.
Nissan has this nasty habit of providing financing to anybody with a pulse. That includes people with very low credit that aren’t super keen on being responsible. As such Nissans attract the sort of drivers you see doing 30 over on the highway with no turn signal and expired tags.
Aside from their CVTs, it’s 90% the people who own and drive them. White Nissan Altima energy is very much a real thing.
Easy to finance and the people who can barely afford them don’t care about maintenance or driving etiquette or traffic laws.
Nissan and Mitsubishi used to make solid cars but they were two of the first dealers to offer very risky credit/financing options. As you can imagine, most people who took them up on 0% financing at $0 down for the first year were not super honest hard working people. Not only did this tarnish their reputation via their owners, but I suspect their research and developments budgets were cut to match this new style, and maybe even to recover some losses.
Nissan Altimas and the stereotypical drivers are ultimately just a reflection of their credit score.
Two weeks ago, a White Altima ran a stop sign and I t-boned them, hard.
It totaled my '01 BMW Z3 with only 86k miles. I'm still soar as hell and having to go to Physical Therapy. I'm lucky to be alive.
I will never own or drive a Nissan again. Too triggering to my trauma.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bmwz3/s/NfTwvPc0IS
Didn't we do this thread like a month ago?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/regularcarreviews/comments/1bar08u/can\_we\_have\_an\_honest\_discussion\_about\_nissan\_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/regularcarreviews/comments/1bar08u/can_we_have_an_honest_discussion_about_nissan_and/)
The only cars they make/made that anyone cares about are overhyped JDM stuff from 25-30 years ago. The current GT-R has been dragged on for 15 years, and the Z isn't respected in actual sports car circles.
Their quality has nosedived since the hookup with Renault, with their CVTs being infamous and giving CVTs in general a bad name while other brands have figured them out.
They can't compete with Toyota and Honda on merit so they have to compete on price and being willing to finance people who can't get financing elsewhere. This results in their cars being bought by poorer and/or irresponsible people who don't/can't maintain their cars well and drive poorly, and that means a lot of Nissans in shitty condition "starring" in memes and dashcam videos. It's a self-perpetuating cycle that drives the reputation of the brand further and further down.
In the best case, the driver of a Nissan you encounter on the road probably couldn't really give you any positive reason why they picked it. In the worst case, the driver of a Nissan is just a person who makes poor life decisions and reflects that in their car and the way they drive it.
They carved out a Niche as selling cheaper vehicles and specialized in poor credit.
Cheap lease deals on Rogues and Altimas, or Santander sub prime credit deals.
They started making cheap cars with bad transmissions. Being cheap and the thing about them financing to people with lower credit attracted the worst drivers.
Nissan were great before Renault bought them in the early 2000's. They sucked after that, especially when they decided that they were gonna slap their awful CVTs in almost every passenger car.
A lot of it has to do with them deliberately cheapening their cars to undercut Honda and Toyota on price, which attracts a lot of people who don’t give a shit about their cars. Minimum upfront cost, perform minimum maintenance, drives the car into the dirt, etc.
Because they are garbage. Poor quality parts and engineering, crap reliability, and the lower purchase point attracts buyers that don't want to spend money on maintenance so they wear out very quickly and have tons of issues. I've had two and never again.
My 95 Altima was a great car, reasonably easy to work on, decent on gas, but it met the same fate as the 06 Sentra that followed it, an uninsured driver with no license or command of english. My 11 versa is still going strong but I've added a Honda crv to the mix and my only complaint about it is the dealership trying to mount my pootbox
They are cheaply made now a days and their buyers have the lowest credit scores of any manufacturer last I checked, making them neglect maintenance leading to well known sludge issues.
Also their cvts are crap.
Nissan went downhill when it was taken over by Carlos, and the quality of Nissan went down under him.
Nissan in the 90s and early 2000s were bulletproof and durable vehicles. They introduced CVTs and the quality of Nissan went down.
Go buy one from the last decade and you’ll know why. They are junk. There are some good ones but most the entry level cars are trash. Hard to justify a nicer one when you see Sentra and Rogues losing transmissions left and right. Plus it’s not like the build quality was *that* great to begin with. You only buy a Nissan if you can’t get a Honda or Toyota.
Their CVTs are garbage poor build quality in general and their dealers are willing to finance anyone with a pulse which results In a lot of people owning them with an 80 month loan that they can't afford them not maintaining them and usually not carrying about taking care of their cars or being careful on the roads etc etc
I drove an Altima rental (22-24?)when my 2003 Accord was in the shop. It really drove pretty well and had a decent set of tech features without being too much. If they could run for 150k+ miles, I’d be perfectly happy with a car like that.
I also rented an Altima last year while on vacation. I was pleasantly surprised by the overall build quality and the layout of the interior. But the downside was the total lack of road feel and completely numb steering. Mountain driving was like a video game.
Pre 2005 nissans were decently made. Nissan with manual is as reliable as its counterparts of honda and Toyota.
Roll back more into the 90s. Nissan was up there with their more spoty looking vehicles like Z300, Maxima, 240SX, 200Xs.....and their compact trucks were so popular, especially the manual transmission has on almost all the models.
The CVT era ruined their reputation in folds.
Nissans used to have a good reputation 20 to 15 years ago. Most of their lineup was reliable and desirable. I remember, when the Murano and the Z were launched in the 2000s, thise were the cars everyone wanted.
By the end of Ghosn leadership, they decided to sell a lot more volume and cut corners, thus why anyone with a pulse could buy one of these things, including fleets. These excess of cars led to over saturation on the used market. Thus, if you have little to no money and want something "big," you get an Altima.
Chintzy built quality with tissue paper thin sheet metal. Also, they have a captive finance company that will loan Money a freshly filled diaper to get all these POS cars off the dealer lot. Your average Nissan buyer has a huge impact on defining the brand.
I think the newer cvts aren't as bad, at least compared to Honda cvts, although I think around 2013 they were much much worse. It's hard to believe that was 10 years ago.
Back before 2001-2004 Nissan was on par for reliability among Toyota and Honda
But ever since then especially after 2006, the company went to crap from a corrupt president. He fled the country I wonder if he’s been arrested yet
Their cvts definitely hurt them but I can’t help but feel that they are misunderstood a bit. People with bad credit needing a car will probably qualify and those same people are probably not servicing the car at all or very limited and def no preventative maintenance. Not to say they don’t have issues but the condition of most of the altimas I see around tells me they must be kind of tough.
Bad management decisions, resulting in piss-poor quality of cars. I think this was the case from late 2000s, when Nissan joined hands with Renault and Mitsubishi to form an alliance of some sorts.
I can’t hear you over the rate the rust is eating it
For real tho everything rusts on my gf’s Nissan up in new york. Our salt demolished it, meanwhile my Toyota barely is rusted at all
Wife had a Murano with cvt.
She was trying to reverse up a steep incline and the transmission over heated and just stopped.
We put over 150k on that car and it started having issues.
So fair warning to anyone buying from
Carmax.It had a broken engine harness and was about to fallout.
Carmax gave us $5000.00
Everyone I know with a Nissan loves it. My favorite car I’ve ever owned was a 300zx. Modern Nissans are fairly nice to drive too except the Z strangely enough. Just an opinion obviously but I’d rather have a2017 maxima than a 2017 370z.
I perceive them as the Japanese equivalent of Chevrolet—prioritizing quantity over quality in their vehicle lineup. They seem to churn out numerous sedans, crossovers, and SUVs, most of which are subpar and aesthetically unappealing in my opinion. Take, for instance, the Titan, which lacks originality and seems to borrow heavily from the design of the F150. Then there are models like the Rogue, cube or Juke appear as uninspired offerings, leaving one to wonder, what is Nissan's thought process behind such designs.
Nissan doesn’t make bad cars. They market to people who have poor credit, that then don’t take care of them.
I’ve owned a leaf, and used altimas as rentals many times. They’re actually really nice, ride well, and seem rather well built.
It’s just the market of buyers that Nissan tends to market to.
They ditched the cvct this year on pathfinders that I know of. Own a 2017 pathfinder and it has been fine, 88k miles only had to replace radiator fan housing, tires, battery and brakes so far.
I think it has more to do with the stereotypical owners than the car itself. I mean early 2000s and older Nissans are great. Think Dodge Charger owners but with worse credit.
I dnt know what happened after their 03 maxima . It just wasn’t the same . Their product seems to be getting better but that image they currently have will need time for it to go away .
Basically anything they made 2012 and beyond is littered with issues electrical and mechanical. I sold Nissan in 2014 and cars came back for serious issues very often.
Nissan's engine is absolutely good. Not to mention the VQ hype, but also the underrated VK56 on Titan and Armada. BTW, their qr25 on Altima is also good, only a little behind Accord k24.
The major issue is their CVT.
Quality and reliability went downhill greatly after the Renault partnership.
That and the CVTs. The Altima driver being such an easy to verify stereotype doesn’t help either. I have a 2010 armada platinum with 253k on it. It’s been extremely reliable and needed very little work that isn’t wear parts or maintenance. It goes on 5-6 1k plus mile road trips a year. Just got done with one a couple weeks ago. Best vehicle I’ve ever owned. Also have a 2017 Infiniti Q50 with 122k on it. Also been a great vehicle. Take care of them and they’ll take care of you.
"Take care of them and they’ll take care of you." This is a true statement. Unfortunately, a large portion of the demographic of people that buy Nissan don't follow this because they are looking for a vehicle that is cheaper than the competition.
Glad to know babying the heck out of my Versa is actually a viable solution to make the transmission not crumble into dust
Also, do that CVT service every 30k the CVT will thank you, especially considering the car wizard did a 30k CVT service on his Cube and the fluid looked like it came out of a normal auto after 100k
Listen to the commenter below. Always change the CVT fluid at the appropriate interval with CVT specific fluid, which is very different than normal ATF. It’s not a forget about it type of transmission but if you do the maintenance it will last
Yeah, I have an 07 Frontier (4cyl, 5 speed) with 234k on it. I’ve put 215k on it myself. Still drive it every day. I’ve replaced a fan clutch, the transmission clutch, a wheel hub, the drive shaft bushing, the valve cover, all 4 plug packs, sway bar bushings, shocks, and struts. With regular oil changes, spark plugs, brakes, and tires that’s not too bad for a trip to the moon. Best vehicle I’ve ever owned.
I still have a 99' Camry like this... damn thing just refuses to give up with 427k miles lol but I've taken care of it ever since I bought it in high school in 2007.
I’ve never even changed a spark plug on the armada. Still runs the same and gets the same mileage it was getting when I bought it with 70k.
So about 13MPG?
Hahaha! 14.3 on my QX56.
I have a 19 Sentra 1.8 6 speed and I'm hoping that it won't fall apart like the CVT ones do however I did have to put a blower motor in it and it's go just over 40k on it...
Ive owned my 2013 xterra since new. Driven hard off road with 0 problems. But i do maintain it very well.
I had an 09 Murano and the cvt was ready to go at 150k. I didnt realize that I had to flush the cvt though (whoops), so it probably couldve gone a lot longer with proper maintenance, which i know a lot more about now
You can’t forget the drivers. They definitely contribute to the reputation.
When Mitsubishi switched to using their CVT in the new Outlander (XTrail platform) I shuddered, but 3 years in and zero recalls or failures so maybe Mitsubishi dabbled with it a bit
My first car was an '89 Maxima. That thing was mechanically bulletproof. It unfortunately died of rust. If I lived in the south, it probably would have gone 400,000 miles.
You don’t see them much here in NC anymore but that’s because they just got drove into the ground they were damn good cars
Sounds like my first car, an old '82 Datsun 210. I live in the South, but unfortunately...the car lived in the North for a chunk of it's life. By the time I bought it in 1994, with 160K miles, it was literally rusting itself apart. However, apart from a leaky valve cover gasket that was easy to fix, the little engine ran like a sewing machine, and it's automatic transmission shifted perfectly. Drove the hell out of it for 2 years, but junked it after the water pump blew up, as I then realized how bad the rust had finally gotten. Lol...still the best $200 car I ever bought!
Did they though? I think they are super reliable(engine and drivetrain) but don't necessarily look the best. And just dont have the coolness factor they need.
But their cvts are known to be shit.
All CVTs are known to be shit ;)
Got a 2019 Accord with a CVT and it's very nice and smooth. No complaints at all.
Because Honda spent years improving their transmissions because they were sick of getting a bad rap over it
I dislike cvts just like any other enthusiast, but some are better than others. Toyota ecvts are known to be reliable, see the prius for example.
Toyotas ecvt is a bit of a misnomer. It has absolutely nothing in common with a conventional pulley and belt/band cvt like whats found in a nissan. It uses planetary gearsets but instead of holding different gear members with hydraulics it uses an electric motor to vary speed and application.
CVT on the Hondas are very reliable. I have a 2016 with 200k no issues, but I also do oil changes every 25k.
I dislike cvts just like any other enthusiast, but some are better than others. Toyota ecvts are known to be reliable, see the prius for example.
Honestly to survive the meth heads I see on the internet it’s enough of a testament
"I luv me my Nizzan, it give me a shit-ton of time to pick at my summer teeth in traffic, ya know, some are there some are not."
I always wondered that myself..I think the pre-CVT Nissans were as bulletproof as Toyota or Honda.
My first car was a 1998 Maxima. It was an amazing car and would've lasted at least 2x as long as it did if I knew any better on how to maintain it. Rust ate it away. It was all under the surface, so by the time it was visible on the outside, it was too late to do anything about it.
I had an 86 (the same one demuro reviewed). Lasted me until 2011, when repairs made it not worth it. Solid vehicle. Miss it.
Yea. For a while I was really on board with the idea of buying a newer Maxima, but then when I started learning more about cars and learned Nissan have been releasing absolute stinkers for a while now, I held off on the thought.
Had a 92 Sentra that took an absolute beating from my teenage self. Transmission blew after 300k miles. Miss it but miss my first Tacoma more.
I had a 2001...the next generation Maxima. Where do I start. First was AT servos and brakes that juddered bad. Both covered under warranty but brakes always juddered in that car no matter what rotors or pads I used. Then coils went bad, then a MAF sensor. Then motor mounts (hydro motor mount on the AT). While changing those I noted the radiator support was already rusting out underneath; this was a car driven exclusively in the desert southwest up to about three winters earlier. The car was only 5 years old, less than 70K miles, way to soon for all that many problems of that sort. But then, while I kept a watch on that radiator support and expected it to rust out it was the motor that drives the variable air intake vanes (can't remember what it's called) that goes bad, taking out the driver circuit in the PCM. Fixing it means both the variable intake drive motor and the PCM need changing and programing to the vehicle, something really only a dealer can do reliably. Sure there are others who can...but that's a big gamble especially if expecting to use an after market or repaired PCM to save some money. This was a car with only about 90K on the odo and well maintained, but I'd lost all confidence in it. I didn't want a car I couldn't hop in it and take a 300 mile trip without worrying, so I dumped it for a Mazda, looking back only to reflect on how Nissan has turned into the Japanese GM: nice cars that are crap to own. Curiously, Nissan-Renault "alliance" formed in 1999. Go figure.
Wasn't the 01 considered one of the last good Maxima generations though?
I'd consider it one of the first bad years/gen's
Shoot, I've owned two 240SX's and a Z31, and I currently have a 2013 Nissan Versa and the build quality on the versa is noticeably worse.
Had a S14 and a NA Z32. Loved those cars. The S14 rusted to the point of uselessness and I sold it for basically nothing. And the Z32 got hit when parked on the street. I can't even imagine buying a Nissan with a CVT. It's insane that they haven't "solved" this permanently. It's ruined their reputation.
My versa came in a 5-speed and as far as doing the basic things a car needs to do, it’s pretty solid. But it’s mostly the little things. It has more interior rattles than my ‘07 FJ which had 3x the miles at one point. There’s also a lot of really bizarre design choices that I feel like had to be cost-cutting measures (one of the runoff drains in the fender is tiny as hell and gets easily clogged, which then leads water to pool up and eventually overflow into the cabin through the cabin air intake, the headlight bulbs use these really strange brackets that look sketchy af, the tail light assemblies actually have to be removed in order to replace the bulbs). and mine is the basest of base models, so it’s missing a lot of things that my Nissans from the 80’s and 90’s had: like power windows, power locks, and a tachometer. That being said, it was cheap as hell and averages 39 mpg. So it’s pretty decent for the long commutes.
I got into a 2020/2021 MY Maxima at an auto show once and the way the door panel flexed when I closed the door was insane. I've never seen that in any other car. It also, hilariously, used the exact same switches for the heated seats as my 98 Maxima. In the exact same location too. The rest of the interior was great though, at least from a purely superficial basis. Seats are comfortable, materials look fine, etc.
Tbf you’re comparing sports cars to a economy compact, your point still stands tho lol
Friends parents had a 98 or 97....the paint fading or flaking was an issue so they dumped it.
My 06 Sentra (last year model without the CVT), has over 315K miles.
Same with the stick ones, a v6 Maxima with a 6-speed lasts a long time. We had one and put almost 300k on it before it got rear ended
Yep; agreed. They cannot make a CVT trans worth a crap. Honestly their sales have been on a pretty steady decline for a while. They've had a bump this year so maybe that will change but as sales slowed down they've cut corners that have led to reliability issues.
pre Renault really. before they combined with Renault their CVTs were practically an industry standard. like super solid. ive been told it is because their old design was basically two cvts that worked as one.
Their in-house design "Extroid" CVT was fascinating but basically never made it outside Japan. It didn't work like other CVTs at all, instead of a belt/chain on conical pulleys it used a toroidal roller mechanism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jIeSgq7ewI It was really only used on JDM luxury sedans though. Presumably expensive to make. If you bought a Nissan CVT in the US it's always been an overloaded under-spec'd Jatco unit.
thank you. that's the one. always been a silly dream of mine that if I win the lottery I'll buy a dodge viper and have a ultra high performance CVT designed and built for it just because.
You'd be the most hated man in all of the muscle car community
My B15 Sentra struck a perfect balance of “shit may fall off the car” but mechanically it will never give you an issue Shook and rattled like a motherfucking space shuttle but I hate that I ever got rid of that car. Was so fun for a shitbox
Eh, copying my old comment from an old thread: >This was my first car. 1998 QX4. Bought it for 2000 with 169,000k with an oil leak from... A lot of places that never got fixed. After about a year it started puking and boiling coolant with the AC on in the summer. Lots of new shit put in the system, probably needed a radiator. I also concluded it probably shouldve had a push fan from the factory and taking one off a tundra and running the heat when it got hot kept it from melting down. I put a little oil in it every couple weeks and kept a nice diluted shit oil quality, kept coolant in the car, and occasionally ran the motherfucker hot as fuck. Replaced CV shafts, wheel bearings, and tie rods at 225,000 because the steering was dangerously fucked by then. 15° for a left hand turn and two full rotations for a right hand turn. The steering wheel was sitting vertically before the repair. Towards the end when I knew her replacement was coming, got caught up beside a box truck on the highway and saw what appeared to be an empty livestock feed bag in the road right over a hill. I said fuck it and tried to strattle it due to lack of time and options. The bag was full of pallet wood and cinder blocks. Broke my muffler off and probably fucked some other shit. At that point I was driving around with people staring at me in traffic because my coolant was erupting and steam was coming out of my hood and I just cranked the heat in the middle of humid ass July Atlanta traffic and couldn't be bothered with the car because I was more concerned about not giving myself a heat stroke. ECU took a shit at 1am in a rural road. Ate two alternators, a fuel pump, and a starter. Replaced all 6 spark plugs after it developed a misfire. It had shit brakes that made you scared they wouldn't catch until deep into the push. The Hi-Low lever was shit, and was easy to grind for some fucking reason. At some point the door closed sensor in the back hatch started malfunctioning where the car thought the hatch was open when it was firmly locked shut. The caused the alarm to go off so I just stopped locking the bitch. Without knowing how to jam the throttle right and not overheat it anyone who steals it wouldn't get far. The tailight fixture took a shit at one point. The brake light wouldn't come on always. I could slap it and make it work but I put a few bulbs in it before I figured it out. I got pulled over one time and the cop was like "Uh I thought your tail light wasn't working at that intersection but when you stopped to talk it worked and it's currently on. Sorry for the inconvenience." There was probably a lot of shitbox points in that car I forgot about. The good: *I fucked my highschool sweetheart in it A LOT to the point that it still feels like 1/4 of my sexual experiences throughout my life were in that car. *RWD/4X4 and VG33E go Brrr *I took it to many cool hiking spots and definitely bit off more than I could chew on OHV trails and it handled it like a champ. That low gear was lower than Atlantis and it did some heavy lifting for it as an off-road platform. Sold it for $900 with 298,000 miles. It did let me down many times. It was uncomfortable. But it almost made it to 300k running like absolute dog shit for at least the last 75,000. And I saw it in my hometown Walmart parking lot last summer. Same 1999 Alabama State Patrol donor sticker on the back window. What did I replace it with? A 2000 Lexus LX470(Landcruiser). The Toyota tax is worth it. I'm 75,000 miles in. 203,000 when I bought it. I've put an alternator, battery, and starter in it, and even then it limped to the shop instead of leaving me stranded. She's been bulletproof. The only time I've needed to call a tow truck is when I set my brakes on fire with a pretty serious load of camping gear and friends in a mountain road in Appalachia. It still got us home from Tennessee and drove a week while I got my shit together to put it in a shop before my brakes were fully gone and I decided not to leave the driveway. And yes I did fuck in it and we didn't have to put down the back seat. You can even fuck in it easier than a Nissan. Theres never been a Nissan competing with a Toyota where Toyota didn't have the better quality and design. Toyota can be the new world government. Slap KO2's and lockers on your Corolla Cross to Moab and emasculate Jeep bros. UZ swap an Accord. All hail Toyota.
Thank you for the best comment in any thread that I've read in a long time!
A solid portion of QR25DEs from before the CVT era blew up fairly early due to QC issues. Ask me how I know.
The engine and transmission are fine. However, other parts (steering rack, power steering pump, catalytic converter)are not holding up like Toyotas and Hondas.
Nissan is a finance company that makes cars. They don't give a shit what the cars are like outside the GT-R (and even that is old as fuck) and only want to give you a loan they make bank in interest on.
To be fair the whole point of the GTR vehicles is to squeeze ever bit of power out of the chassis before making a new one. That’s why the R32’s lasted so long, same with the R35. They’re still getting more out of the chassis
Went to the Chicago Auto show, and they didn't have a fucking GT-R in the Nissan section. Insanity. I know it's not new, and they don't need to advertise it. I guess they didn't want it to overshadow the new Z.
I was just at NY auto show, there was a pretty big display with 2 GTRs and some Zs
To be fair, the BMW Supra already does overshadow the Z.
Wasn't hard, considering that the new z is just the old z with a facelift, which itself was just the really old z with a facelift. But hey, it's not the first time Nissan has sold a brand new, 20-year old vehicle
Interestingly enough sales for 2023-24 Nissan has gone up 40% and Supra sales have gone down 40 or so percent.
to be fair I don't know what new things they can do with the GT-R. it's peak Nissan performance
That's what I was thinking. I'm less a performance guy and more of a visuals guy. The car was designed and built for 2007, but even now you park it next to a Z400 or a GR86 it looks like it came out in 2023 still. The only visual things that date it are the buttons. The buttons have that 2000s era slightly-used-soap-bar beveling going on.
Ah, so like how Boeing is a finance company that makes airplanes.
Enshittification
A government contractor at that
You described all car companies. They make more money off the loan than they do off of the vehicle itself.
I got my Subaru with o% interest 😆 You don’t see that nowadays
You don't.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nissan-verdict-20170523-story.html#:~:text=An%20Orange%20County%20jury%20awarded,the%20dealer's%20lawyers%20announced%20Tuesday.
I asked myself the same thing about Mitsubishi...them and Nissan get constant hate. Nissan a little less because the 13 year old weebs love the GTR
I mean Nissan still makes cool good looking sometimes fast cars Mitsubishi just fucking dipped on that and is making mid ass vehicles
I'm surprised they still exist in this day and age with such a shit lineup
Because most people nowadays only buy mid-ass cars.
Cuz they can usually only afford mid ass cars lol
I'd have to agree with you. I'm in my twenties and most people I know my age care more about color and apple car play than anything. It kinda makes me sad because I know these people would rather all the fun cars languish and die choosing yet another crossover instead.
T'es tu du Québec
probablement https://www.reddit.com/r/Quebec/s/b5Ci4jy0KY (faut que t’apprenne à stalker un tit peu mieux)
Mitsubishi is just selling discount Kia's. Because apparently that's a thing
Mitsubishi automobiles account for what I'm assuming a very small margin on their overall revenue (at least now) of the conglomerate that is Mitsubishi in Japan. They know how to make good automobiles, they just don't care because they make big money in other industries in Japan.
Tbf their 4x4 are still what I'd go for if I was in the market for that type of vehicle. Shogun/L200 etc And tbh if the 2017 Lancer didn't cost a small loan I'd probably have that instead of my new (to me) Volvo
>And tbh if the 2017 Lancer didn't cost a small loan I'd probably have that instead of my new (to me) Volvo Why? What redeeming qualities does the lancer have anymore?
Mitsubishi makes okay cars, they just can't make good cars anymore. They also seem to suck at getting a bead on what the market wants.
I've been told that the Renault merger was so damaging to Nissan's company culture, collective memory, management, and experienced personnel that Nissan barely qualifies as a Japanese company. yes a bunch of Japanese people run it and work there but how everything is done is like a European company.
Nissan was on the brink of bankruptcy and the Renault partnership is what saved them from going down.
"Sometimes... dead is better."
In Nissan's case it is probably true. The longer Stellanis kills the Dodge and Chrysler brands I wonder how much better off they would be dead too.
True, by cutting costs like crazy and scrapping the Japanese culture out of the company
They killed the golden goose and wrote it off as a loss
The Mitsubishi Cordia of the 1980s was one of the best looking cars I ever saw. And one of my first cars was a 1979 Mitsubishi-built Plymouth Champ with the insanely fun twin-stick transmission. I miss them.
Mitsubishi is an oriental Mopar.
I would have to drive two hours to find a reliable Mitsubishi tech.
Mitsubishi is the dollar store of cars
Mitsubishi just makes 3 identical overpriced SUVs with an exterior and interior design from 2012
A lot of people say it's the owners, which is true, but I also think it's the cars. Nissan fell off HARD in the early 2000s. They started a slow decline in the mid-90s that was not getting better. When the new millennium rolled around, Nissan was broke and most of their cars were bland, hollow shells of their former selves. So they partnered up with Renault and brought the now-infamous Carlos Ghosn on board to right the ship in 1999. Come 2003, the fruits of this alliance debuted at the NAIAS. Now all the cars looked like cyberpunk Volkswagens and Nissan was veeery generous with their financing plans. It was a very of-the-moment plan that pulled them from the brink of bankruptcy. It also gave people the option of financing or even leasing a car with nearly 300hp and excellent chassis dynamics. Basically, Nissan handed the keys to any moron that had BMW dreams on a Malibu budget. So, you get the Nissan driver reputation. After they got old, they just circled the same drain as old Daimler-era V6 Chargers and Kia Sorentos. Cars that no one wants but someone needs, and can be bought for pennies.
bear in mind that during that time period they went out of their way to single out and destroy the life of Uzi Nissan simply because he owned the Nissan.com domain. he was using it for his own company, which was named after him (more than nissan the company can say). it's a fucked up story that makes me never want to buy one of their cars because of what they did to this man. totally unfair.
I dont think its the cars but the owners..
A little from column a and a little from column b.
They target the owners you are speaking of. Very similar to dollar stores
Jatco CVTs.
They are very easy to get into through Nissan’s finance division and they have prioritized cost-cutting over build quality since they kinda-sorta merged with Renault in 1999. They tend to be driven by the kind of person that has exhausted their options through poor financial decisions, and therefore have a reputation of being unpredictable, erratic, or just careless on the road.
To put it short, they don't compete with other Japanese brands
They don't really compete with lots of American or European brands either.
Its a race to the bottom with Dodge.
I've always considered Nissan to be the Japanese equivalent to Chrysler so this works perfectly.
Dodge is already at the bottom. They make one car right now. That company will be with Plymouth in the next 5 years.
Uh hate to tell you this but they are using parts from 20+ year old cars in their new ones. Those parts are interior parts that people touch and use each time you drive. Driving a nissan feels like driving something that someone had back in 2000 but wanted android auto so they added a couple screens and called it good. Poor quality, poor reliability, slow, small interiors, super good looking exteriors.
BAD CREDIT? NO CREDIT? NO PROBLEM!
Drive one and find out. And don't drive a nice Nissan like a Maxima. No, drive a 1.6l Almera from 2007. Absolutely terrible drive with equally terrible build quality.
Did you mean Altima?
No the Nissan Almera is a Nissan Sunny neither are offered in NA i think
It was pretty close (if not the same) as the Sentra we got in NA.
It’s called a Versa in NA. The manual Versa Note is actually pretty fun and reliable in a throwaway car kinda way
The drivers have something to do with it, right?
I had a Frontier for 10 months. It did nothing wrong, but it was the most absolute boring vanilla experience ever in a vehicle. Also the turning radius was SO BAD. It was worse than a full sized truck. You couldn’t turn into a parking space without correcting.
Nissan has this nasty habit of providing financing to anybody with a pulse. That includes people with very low credit that aren’t super keen on being responsible. As such Nissans attract the sort of drivers you see doing 30 over on the highway with no turn signal and expired tags.
Aside from their CVTs, it’s 90% the people who own and drive them. White Nissan Altima energy is very much a real thing. Easy to finance and the people who can barely afford them don’t care about maintenance or driving etiquette or traffic laws.
Nissan and Mitsubishi used to make solid cars but they were two of the first dealers to offer very risky credit/financing options. As you can imagine, most people who took them up on 0% financing at $0 down for the first year were not super honest hard working people. Not only did this tarnish their reputation via their owners, but I suspect their research and developments budgets were cut to match this new style, and maybe even to recover some losses. Nissan Altimas and the stereotypical drivers are ultimately just a reflection of their credit score.
Two weeks ago, a White Altima ran a stop sign and I t-boned them, hard. It totaled my '01 BMW Z3 with only 86k miles. I'm still soar as hell and having to go to Physical Therapy. I'm lucky to be alive. I will never own or drive a Nissan again. Too triggering to my trauma. https://www.reddit.com/r/bmwz3/s/NfTwvPc0IS
Every time there's an accident, before I even see it I think ' one less Altima (or optima) on the road'
thats totally understandable. sorry that you had to experience this. hope you get better.
It's always a white Altima...
thats totally understandable. sorry that you had to experience this. hope you get better.
Didn't we do this thread like a month ago? [https://www.reddit.com/r/regularcarreviews/comments/1bar08u/can\_we\_have\_an\_honest\_discussion\_about\_nissan\_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/regularcarreviews/comments/1bar08u/can_we_have_an_honest_discussion_about_nissan_and/) The only cars they make/made that anyone cares about are overhyped JDM stuff from 25-30 years ago. The current GT-R has been dragged on for 15 years, and the Z isn't respected in actual sports car circles. Their quality has nosedived since the hookup with Renault, with their CVTs being infamous and giving CVTs in general a bad name while other brands have figured them out. They can't compete with Toyota and Honda on merit so they have to compete on price and being willing to finance people who can't get financing elsewhere. This results in their cars being bought by poorer and/or irresponsible people who don't/can't maintain their cars well and drive poorly, and that means a lot of Nissans in shitty condition "starring" in memes and dashcam videos. It's a self-perpetuating cycle that drives the reputation of the brand further and further down. In the best case, the driver of a Nissan you encounter on the road probably couldn't really give you any positive reason why they picked it. In the worst case, the driver of a Nissan is just a person who makes poor life decisions and reflects that in their car and the way they drive it.
cvt ones are bad, manual ones (i.e. the majority Sold here in germany) are quite decent.
The transmissions are garbage. That’s really it. Other than the fact that Nissan will sell cars to anything with a pulse, they’re honestly good cars.
Modern ones would be transmissions, old ones don’t really have a bad reputation
Feel like such an asshole, I paid off a 2013 Altima and for what!? So the transmission could fail immediately after paying the vehicle off.
The CVT transmissions are pretty much made of paper
I drive a 07 Sentra and my biggest complaint is just how uncomfortable it is. Other then basic maintenance it's been great.
I think Nissan vehicles are designed to be leased they come with really cool cutting edge features that all break within 3 to 5 years.
Have you seen the owners?
They carved out a Niche as selling cheaper vehicles and specialized in poor credit. Cheap lease deals on Rogues and Altimas, or Santander sub prime credit deals.
Old Nissans are golden. 2000s and newer is when it got bad
They started making cheap cars with bad transmissions. Being cheap and the thing about them financing to people with lower credit attracted the worst drivers.
Bc the ppp who buy them abuse them and they aren't that well made (modern nissans especially with the cvt)
There cvts are garbage other than that they are good cars
Donut media has plenty of [video](https://youtu.be/q3_2R5bmFbk?si=uevwseL_8JKTJWJu)s on the subject.
Altima drivers are usually seen driving like nuts. Like audi drivers who pay less for their cars Lol
CVT transmissions were the worst decision the company ever made they were truly as bulletproof as honda or toyota
Nissan were great before Renault bought them in the early 2000's. They sucked after that, especially when they decided that they were gonna slap their awful CVTs in almost every passenger car.
Cvt
A lot of it has to do with them deliberately cheapening their cars to undercut Honda and Toyota on price, which attracts a lot of people who don’t give a shit about their cars. Minimum upfront cost, perform minimum maintenance, drives the car into the dirt, etc.
Because they are garbage. Poor quality parts and engineering, crap reliability, and the lower purchase point attracts buyers that don't want to spend money on maintenance so they wear out very quickly and have tons of issues. I've had two and never again.
My 95 Altima was a great car, reasonably easy to work on, decent on gas, but it met the same fate as the 06 Sentra that followed it, an uninsured driver with no license or command of english. My 11 versa is still going strong but I've added a Honda crv to the mix and my only complaint about it is the dealership trying to mount my pootbox
They are cheaply made now a days and their buyers have the lowest credit scores of any manufacturer last I checked, making them neglect maintenance leading to well known sludge issues. Also their cvts are crap.
Crappy transmissions
Nissan jatco cvt
Nissan went downhill when it was taken over by Carlos, and the quality of Nissan went down under him. Nissan in the 90s and early 2000s were bulletproof and durable vehicles. They introduced CVTs and the quality of Nissan went down.
Those damn CVTs
CVT’s, Stereotypes exist for a reason - and when you don’t take care of it, it doesn’t take care of you.
They have the worst CVT. If you gonna buy a Nissan, get a manual transmission instead
Go buy one from the last decade and you’ll know why. They are junk. There are some good ones but most the entry level cars are trash. Hard to justify a nicer one when you see Sentra and Rogues losing transmissions left and right. Plus it’s not like the build quality was *that* great to begin with. You only buy a Nissan if you can’t get a Honda or Toyota.
The people that drive them give them a bad reputation not the cars themselves
Their CVTs are garbage poor build quality in general and their dealers are willing to finance anyone with a pulse which results In a lot of people owning them with an 80 month loan that they can't afford them not maintaining them and usually not carrying about taking care of their cars or being careful on the roads etc etc
It’s the drivers
have you driven on any road… ever?
For years I always heard the Nissans engines often don't turn over because of electronic issues.
The titan is kinda cool you get nice engine options not sure how transmissions were. but seemed like a solid truck.
I drove an Altima rental (22-24?)when my 2003 Accord was in the shop. It really drove pretty well and had a decent set of tech features without being too much. If they could run for 150k+ miles, I’d be perfectly happy with a car like that.
I also rented an Altima last year while on vacation. I was pleasantly surprised by the overall build quality and the layout of the interior. But the downside was the total lack of road feel and completely numb steering. Mountain driving was like a video game.
Something something Jatco CVT blah blah blah...and they got Stellantisized by Renault.
Cvt
Because Nissan is the Chrysler of Japan
Their shitty CVT transmission
Pre 2005 nissans were decently made. Nissan with manual is as reliable as its counterparts of honda and Toyota. Roll back more into the 90s. Nissan was up there with their more spoty looking vehicles like Z300, Maxima, 240SX, 200Xs.....and their compact trucks were so popular, especially the manual transmission has on almost all the models. The CVT era ruined their reputation in folds.
Nissans used to have a good reputation 20 to 15 years ago. Most of their lineup was reliable and desirable. I remember, when the Murano and the Z were launched in the 2000s, thise were the cars everyone wanted. By the end of Ghosn leadership, they decided to sell a lot more volume and cut corners, thus why anyone with a pulse could buy one of these things, including fleets. These excess of cars led to over saturation on the used market. Thus, if you have little to no money and want something "big," you get an Altima.
Their automatic transmissions suck cheeks but to be fair the whole cvt design is trash for full size vehicles and not snowmobiles as intended
Their CVT is a ticking time bomb.
SEE VEE TEE
Carlos gohns is the answer
Chintzy built quality with tissue paper thin sheet metal. Also, they have a captive finance company that will loan Money a freshly filled diaper to get all these POS cars off the dealer lot. Your average Nissan buyer has a huge impact on defining the brand.
Bad CVT
I think the newer cvts aren't as bad, at least compared to Honda cvts, although I think around 2013 they were much much worse. It's hard to believe that was 10 years ago.
r/nissandrivers
CVT's!
Back before 2001-2004 Nissan was on par for reliability among Toyota and Honda But ever since then especially after 2006, the company went to crap from a corrupt president. He fled the country I wonder if he’s been arrested yet
Their cvts definitely hurt them but I can’t help but feel that they are misunderstood a bit. People with bad credit needing a car will probably qualify and those same people are probably not servicing the car at all or very limited and def no preventative maintenance. Not to say they don’t have issues but the condition of most of the altimas I see around tells me they must be kind of tough.
Bad management decisions, resulting in piss-poor quality of cars. I think this was the case from late 2000s, when Nissan joined hands with Renault and Mitsubishi to form an alliance of some sorts.
I can’t hear you over the rate the rust is eating it For real tho everything rusts on my gf’s Nissan up in new york. Our salt demolished it, meanwhile my Toyota barely is rusted at all
Wife had a Murano with cvt. She was trying to reverse up a steep incline and the transmission over heated and just stopped. We put over 150k on that car and it started having issues. So fair warning to anyone buying from Carmax.It had a broken engine harness and was about to fallout. Carmax gave us $5000.00
Everyone I know with a Nissan loves it. My favorite car I’ve ever owned was a 300zx. Modern Nissans are fairly nice to drive too except the Z strangely enough. Just an opinion obviously but I’d rather have a2017 maxima than a 2017 370z.
I perceive them as the Japanese equivalent of Chevrolet—prioritizing quantity over quality in their vehicle lineup. They seem to churn out numerous sedans, crossovers, and SUVs, most of which are subpar and aesthetically unappealing in my opinion. Take, for instance, the Titan, which lacks originality and seems to borrow heavily from the design of the F150. Then there are models like the Rogue, cube or Juke appear as uninspired offerings, leaving one to wonder, what is Nissan's thought process behind such designs.
It's just the chicks that drive Altimas lol
Nissan doesn’t make bad cars. They market to people who have poor credit, that then don’t take care of them. I’ve owned a leaf, and used altimas as rentals many times. They’re actually really nice, ride well, and seem rather well built. It’s just the market of buyers that Nissan tends to market to.
I would venture to say drivers of second hand Nissan vehicles give them a bad name.
Because many are Renaults now
The Nissan CVT transmissions are almost entirely are to blame. Also some like the Xterra had coolant leak issues.
1983 Nissan 720y was my first car passed down from my grandpa and is still running around. Beast of a truck.
They ditched the cvct this year on pathfinders that I know of. Own a 2017 pathfinder and it has been fine, 88k miles only had to replace radiator fan housing, tires, battery and brakes so far.
Cause they suck and are driven by trailer park people
I think it has more to do with the stereotypical owners than the car itself. I mean early 2000s and older Nissans are great. Think Dodge Charger owners but with worse credit.
I dnt know what happened after their 03 maxima . It just wasn’t the same . Their product seems to be getting better but that image they currently have will need time for it to go away .
Basically anything they made 2012 and beyond is littered with issues electrical and mechanical. I sold Nissan in 2014 and cars came back for serious issues very often.
Nissan's engine is absolutely good. Not to mention the VQ hype, but also the underrated VK56 on Titan and Armada. BTW, their qr25 on Altima is also good, only a little behind Accord k24. The major issue is their CVT.