Drive One And You'll Understand (Nissan Maxima)

Member Name: kenjohn

Product:	Nissan Maxima
Date:	07/12/00 (257 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Comfortable, A Lot of Car For the Money

Disadvantages: VERY Thirsty. Poor Economy

~ ~ The flagship of the Nissan fleet, the Nissan Maxima carries that flag with pride. This is an outstanding car in all departments, and an absolute joy to drive.

~ ~ I am a taxi-driver in Dublin, Ireland, and must admit to a certain amount of positive bias when it comes to Nissan, as I have driven this marque ever since I began “cabbying” some six years ago.

~ ~ I bought my 1990 Maxima in the summer of 1997 with just over 100,000 miles on the clock. It was an impulse buy. I had gone into the main Nissan dealer to buy a part for my existing car, and there she was sitting in the forecourt. I knew one of the salesmen quite well, and as I had always admired the Maxima from a far, I asked him if I could take it out for a test drive, purely out of curiosity, and with no real intention of purchasing. He had taken it in that morning as a trade in against a brand new Maxima, and was keen to move the car on, as it was older than they generally keep for resale. The old sales maxim is “Get’em behind the wheel”. Well it certainly worked in my case. It was love at first sight, or in this instance, love at first ‘drive’.

DRIVABILITY AND PERFORMANCE

~ ~ The 1990 Maxima has a 3 Litre, straight six cylinder engine, which delivers all the power you would ever expect or require in a totally effortless and smooth fashion. The car I bought had an automatic transmission, but it is also available with a manual box. This gearbox has three settings, which alter both the performance and the fuel consumption considerably. There is an intermediate setting for day to day urban driving, a cruise setting for long journeys with lots of motorway driving, and lastly a sports setting for those occasions when you want to “burn a bit of rubber”.
While the performance would not be “Porsche” standard, it is certainly powerful enough to pull you out of any tricky situations you might find yoursel
f in, and reallycomes into its own when accelerating at between 60 and 80 m.p.h., with an instant “kickdown” and fast acceleration as soon as you press the gas pedal to the floor.
It sticks to the road like a dead hedgehog, and never in the six months that I had the car did I even come close to “losing” it. The steering is crisp and precise, and all the controls are readily accessible.
The Maxima has all the little extra specifications you would expect from a luxury car; air con, cruise control, alloy wheels, electric everything, etc. Talking about the cruise control. Coming home in the early hours one morning after a late shift in the cab, I found myself on a freeway almost totally devoid of any other traffic. (If you know Dublin you will realise what a rare experience this is!!) I progressed the speedometer up to 120m.p.h. (I know, I know, it’s very naughty) and flipped on the cruise. There the Maxima sat, like a fat frog on a sticky leaf, while I proceeded to roll myself a cigarette. No hands and no feet. I tell this tale not out of a sense of bravado, as I am not a fast driver as a general rule, but to illustrate how “safe” this car makes you feel, even at high speed.

COMFORT AND ECONOMY

~ ~ The car is comfortable and spacious. My model had velour cloth upholstery, but if you shop around, a lot of early models came with a full leather interior. The seats were supportive and firm, and even after a gruelling twelve hour shift, I would get out relatively ache free. The ride is superb. Even the most uneven road surface was levelled out by a suspension system that felt like you were riding on a cushion of air.
There was room in the rear for three (full-grown) adults, and plenty of legroom.
The trunk was large and cavernous, and swallowed luggage like a hungry jumbo jet.
My only crib was the petrol consumption. This car was thirsty. In purely urban driving, I never got better than a
bout 18 miles per gallon. In fact, it was this that led to me eventually getting rid of the car, as to high a proportion of my earnings as a taxi-driver were going to feed its insatiable appetite for fuel.
That said, I miss her still!!!!

Ken J.

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