Everyone that’s active knows by now that I wrecked my F150 recently. The rental car they gave me was a 2019 Nissan Maxima SV and these are my thoughts about it after putting nearly 2000 miles on it.
The exterior styling of the car is very edgy and is similar to most everything in the Nissan line. It really looks like about everything else Japan has on the road and doesn’t stand out much. The headlights are very freaking bright but didn’t seem to bother anyone else.
The ride is comfortable yet controlled. It has nimble handling characteristics for a front wheel drive car and has quick steering with a decent on center feel. You would know that there were no autocross events while I had it so I had to try to “enjoy it too” much on backroads. Turn in is very quick and it has the typical FWD understeer but add copious throttle mid corner and it basically just pulls itself through. Switch the TCS off and it will smoke the tires while torque steering to the right. Which was odd.
The 3.5 V6 cranks out a seemingly low, by today’s standards, 300 horsepower and 261 lb ft of torque. Car and Driver said it’s enough to propel this sedan to a 14.3 @ 101 quarter mile and sprint to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds. It certainly feels much quicker than my both of my SN95’s did stock and would’ve embarrassed them both. I’m not sure what the top speed is but I pushed it to 122 mph, for science. The engine noise was minimal but had just enough growl to sound a little sporty. The exhaust note was very subdued and sounded sort of like an angry V6 leaf blower. The seven speed transmission is very smooth. Too smooth. In fact, it’s tough to notice shifts until 4th or 5th gear. Switch it over to “manual mode” and you can handle the shifting yourself. Miss the shift point and it just shifts anyway. It’s as useless as a screen door on a submarine. There is a “sport mode” that seems to raise the shift points and feel like you aren’t driving a sedan. There may be more to it but I’m used to the “SportMode” in my F150 which raises shift points, adjusts timing and is violent. Ask @lwarrior1016. He’s experienced it.
The view from the driver’s seat offers decent visibility in every direction except out the rear window or looking at a 3/4 angle over your shoulder, say, to switch lanes. There are blindspot sensors with audible/visual aids to help with this. The dash is laid out nicely with everything at arms reach. If you connect a device via Bluetooth, or the USB located in the compartment below the radio, you can control everything from the large console mounted knob or the steering wheel controls. Also, there are buttons for traction control and “sport mode”.
Speaking of, the steering wheel is designed with the GTR’s in mind but is very thin and isn’t soft at all. In fact, it’s quite firm and the leather almost feels like it was stretched to the max. The perforations kept my hands dry and I never lost control of it. So.. It works. The radio controls are on the left side. The volume is a rocker switch and track up/down is more of a toggle switch and then being so close together you inadvertently switch songs trying to turn the volume up. Stupid. The two arrows on the lower left are to switch between menu items on the dash display. The cruise control me are on the right as is the voice command and the button to answer the phone. The cruise control is adaptive and will screw with your mind at first. It will literally brake the car to a complete stop and you can set the desired following distance with the top button. The cruise control also slows the car down when you take corners and it generally annoying to use.
The center stack has a large touchscreen display that for GPS and audio functions. It also functions as the back up camera. The HVAC controls are intuitive and offer dual zone climate control. It never left 68*F and it never failed to eventually cool the cabin down even without any window tint. The leather seats were very comfortable with decent side bolstering to keep my 5’10” 220 lb frame in place when blasting around my favorite curvy roads.
The sound system actually sounds really good for what it is. Turn the bass up and it rattles everything in the car. It even vibrates the mirrors like you had a real sound system. Probably my favorite feature of the car.
After a few weeks it started to have this issue where the front “radar” would stop working. It would in turn cancel cruise control function, which sucked. I had gotten used to the car driving itself.
It has a fairly large trunk and worked well as a surrogate for my truck! It also swallowed my 45 qt Yeti easily and, well, it’s the trunk. What else to say?
All in all? Not a bad car for the average commuter who wants to have a little fun along the way. Would I buy it? Maybe if it were rear wheel drive but most likely not.
The exterior styling of the car is very edgy and is similar to most everything in the Nissan line. It really looks like about everything else Japan has on the road and doesn’t stand out much. The headlights are very freaking bright but didn’t seem to bother anyone else.
The ride is comfortable yet controlled. It has nimble handling characteristics for a front wheel drive car and has quick steering with a decent on center feel. You would know that there were no autocross events while I had it so I had to try to “enjoy it too” much on backroads. Turn in is very quick and it has the typical FWD understeer but add copious throttle mid corner and it basically just pulls itself through. Switch the TCS off and it will smoke the tires while torque steering to the right. Which was odd.
The 3.5 V6 cranks out a seemingly low, by today’s standards, 300 horsepower and 261 lb ft of torque. Car and Driver said it’s enough to propel this sedan to a 14.3 @ 101 quarter mile and sprint to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds. It certainly feels much quicker than my both of my SN95’s did stock and would’ve embarrassed them both. I’m not sure what the top speed is but I pushed it to 122 mph, for science. The engine noise was minimal but had just enough growl to sound a little sporty. The exhaust note was very subdued and sounded sort of like an angry V6 leaf blower. The seven speed transmission is very smooth. Too smooth. In fact, it’s tough to notice shifts until 4th or 5th gear. Switch it over to “manual mode” and you can handle the shifting yourself. Miss the shift point and it just shifts anyway. It’s as useless as a screen door on a submarine. There is a “sport mode” that seems to raise the shift points and feel like you aren’t driving a sedan. There may be more to it but I’m used to the “SportMode” in my F150 which raises shift points, adjusts timing and is violent. Ask @lwarrior1016. He’s experienced it.
The view from the driver’s seat offers decent visibility in every direction except out the rear window or looking at a 3/4 angle over your shoulder, say, to switch lanes. There are blindspot sensors with audible/visual aids to help with this. The dash is laid out nicely with everything at arms reach. If you connect a device via Bluetooth, or the USB located in the compartment below the radio, you can control everything from the large console mounted knob or the steering wheel controls. Also, there are buttons for traction control and “sport mode”.
Speaking of, the steering wheel is designed with the GTR’s in mind but is very thin and isn’t soft at all. In fact, it’s quite firm and the leather almost feels like it was stretched to the max. The perforations kept my hands dry and I never lost control of it. So.. It works. The radio controls are on the left side. The volume is a rocker switch and track up/down is more of a toggle switch and then being so close together you inadvertently switch songs trying to turn the volume up. Stupid. The two arrows on the lower left are to switch between menu items on the dash display. The cruise control me are on the right as is the voice command and the button to answer the phone. The cruise control is adaptive and will screw with your mind at first. It will literally brake the car to a complete stop and you can set the desired following distance with the top button. The cruise control also slows the car down when you take corners and it generally annoying to use.
The center stack has a large touchscreen display that for GPS and audio functions. It also functions as the back up camera. The HVAC controls are intuitive and offer dual zone climate control. It never left 68*F and it never failed to eventually cool the cabin down even without any window tint. The leather seats were very comfortable with decent side bolstering to keep my 5’10” 220 lb frame in place when blasting around my favorite curvy roads.
The sound system actually sounds really good for what it is. Turn the bass up and it rattles everything in the car. It even vibrates the mirrors like you had a real sound system. Probably my favorite feature of the car.
After a few weeks it started to have this issue where the front “radar” would stop working. It would in turn cancel cruise control function, which sucked. I had gotten used to the car driving itself.
It has a fairly large trunk and worked well as a surrogate for my truck! It also swallowed my 45 qt Yeti easily and, well, it’s the trunk. What else to say?
All in all? Not a bad car for the average commuter who wants to have a little fun along the way. Would I buy it? Maybe if it were rear wheel drive but most likely not.