Here’s Why Mechanics Hate Nissans

people are always asking me about sports sedans i'm going to talk about this 2007 nissan maxima is it a good car is it a bad car now when this maximo was new it was a 28 000 car now it's a 2007. even the books that generally inflate value say that this thing is worth anywhere from 1700 to 3 300 today now my customer bought this thing a year ago for 3 500 and the first thing he said to me was yeah i wish i would have bought a toyota instead to which i responded yeah but you're not going to get much of a toyota for 3 500 i mean check this car out it's a nice looking car still got a great paint job white reflects heat holds up over time the wheels are still good nice lines to it there's no bashes or anything it is a nice looking car but alas looks can be deceiving and they often are an older nissan i tell people you want to buy one buy a new one keep it a hundred thousand miles you might not have any problems at all but this baby now that it's got some mileage on it it's got 152 719 miles guess what it's showing its age it needs quite a bit of work now in this case this baby has three catalytic converters and they're going out it is typical on nissan's and i've often had people buy the cheaper aftermarket catalytic converters and they still fail the test if you have to buy three cats for this car and you buy oem factory cats that's more money than the car's worth it runs decently most of the time especially after you put some cat cleaner in the tank in order to get it legally passed in an inspection if you live in an area that has a mission's inspecting you'd have to replace those cats and man that is one expensive job and it's typical they almost always go bad on these nissan v6 engines when they get mileage like this one has like 150 on it almost invariably they're going to go bad now once in a while they get too clogged up and it really runs bad when you put the cleaner and it cleans it out so let's say you lived in a place like montana where they don't inspect cars for emissions you could just keep adding cleaner you know and live with that but if you live in a place where they inspect cars for emissions especially california you wouldn't want to touch this car with a 10 foot pole and you might have noticed i got ac gauges hooked up because the ac system is leaking that's the reason the guy brought the car in in the first place because it's hot here in houston and he wants to see what's wrong with the ac i'm gonna fill it up put some dye in look for big leaks if i don't find any just tell them just keep filling the stupid thing up because as it's running you can hear the compressor rattling a little you know at some point the compressor itself is going to go out that's a lot of money on one of these no if you don't have to have ac you don't care but here in houston that's important hence they have extremely low resale value under this hole now as we look inside hey the interior's still in excellent shape that's how they sell these things they're comfortable they handle great they got a nice nissan engine and a good suspension system and as we check the back a lot of room in the back seat and a decent trunk there's some good room in here for stuff notice the jumper cables and as i said v6 engine it's very reliable this one puts out 255 horsepower not insane horsepower but back in 2007 that was still a decent amount and it's a very zippy car the problem is this age these things just tend to fall apart they look great but it's all a facade the owner says he's got a clunk on the left front let's jack it up see what's going on there find a good jack point there's one and up we go so first we'll look inside we can see it's wet in here so the strut's starting to wear and i can see and feel a ridge kind of a scalloped ridge a warren strut can do that ass can worn front end parts and when i wiggle this back and forth i can feel there's some play in the power steering rack so that means the very expensive power steering rack is worn eventually that'll need replacing again a brand new one that'll be more than the car is actually worth although that is something you can live with it's not too bad yet it's not going clunk or clunker i've had customers driving years that way they were just buying new front tires maybe every 15 000 miles because they wear out too fast and as long as they didn't clunk when you pulled on it now you hit a big bump you hear a clunk up there they would just live with that do not expect perfection if you buy one of these things used with this kind of mileage on it so let's put it down take it for a spin now as we can see in the door here this is a nissan it's a japanese car but if you notice here it says manufactured by nissan motor company this one was actually put together in tennessee so let's start it up it starts right up most japanese cars will now you do have to say it's a pretty quiet car but if you listen you can hear the power steering groaning because that's a little worn but it still works it does still have the feel of a nice sports sedan it does still ride pretty good even though the struts are worn even though it's old it still handles decent and let's see how this thing with 150 2 000 miles accelerates on your arc get set go it's still got some decent acceleration and the transmission still works pretty good they are made for speed and even though this one's old hey it's still a fun car to drive and it rides pretty good on the highway if you heard the little talking voice he's got radar hooked up many people who drive these things have radar detectors because they tend to drive fast that's why they bought the nissan [Music] that's how they sell these things in the first place they're fast they're fun to drive but as they age like this one they become endless money pits if you want perfection now if you don't mind a car that's old but still fast fun to drive and you don't mind dealing with the hassle of getting this thing inspected because it needs catalytic converters which costs the fortune or the ac maybe you got to keep filling it up with refrigerant every once in a while if you don't mind a car like that and you can pick up one like this hey look they go for fifteen hundred to thirty two hundred dollars they don't cost that much money but if you're one of those people who just want a car you can just buy and drive and not mess with this is not the car for you because as beautiful as it looks for a 14 year old car looks can be deceiving and in this case it's hiding a lot of problems sure it'd be a fun toy if you could pick one up for 1500 bucks or something and only drive it on the weekends maybe fix what you need to or live with it like the steering it's not bad it's got a little play eventually it's going to need a rack but if you only drive it 1000 to 3 000 miles a year what the heck it still might go a decade or more before it finally completely gets enough wobble that you have to because it's not safe if you're going to do something like that you don't really care about the front tires wearing out because they'll dry rot first if you're only driving small mileage after five six seven years the tires will dry rot they'll get cracks and they're on safe and you gotta replace them anyways so if you're using it as a toy you really don't care hey five years later you still got it the tires are dry rotted just buy cheaper tires and put them on but to me it's kind of sad because decades ago the nissan maximus i had customers have three 400 000 miles on them and they didn't do hardly any work other than timing belts brake jobs oil changes stuff like that they're not as well made as they once were nissan quality kind of like gm has been going downhill for decades and it's a shame because they make cars that look good ride good zippy to go around in so i mean really if you want a cheap toy you can find one of these cheap take advantage of the fact that they have problems you get a nice little car cheap and toy around with it on the weekend whatever you want to do but do not buy one of these things and pay hardly any money for it and expect you're going to be able to drive it 20 000 miles a year as a luxury sports sedan because it'll bite you in the rear end and cost you a small fortune to keep it in tip-top shape and here's some bonus questions and answers christian colin says what is the best everyday car to buy under us dollars five thousand you know of course a lot of it depends on what kind of style you want once you yada but if you want the thing that's going to last the absolute longest get a used toyota corolla or if you can find one a camry the camry is much more luxurious but you're going to have to buy either a camry that's got a lot more mileage than the corolla or is a whole bunch older because they're worth a lot more than the corollas are either one can last forever regardless of even if you're only paying you know 3 500 bucks or something pay a mechanic like me to check it out before you buy it because it doesn't matter what you're paying you could be getting a money pit you can't trust anybody if it's wrecked flooded stolen make sure it's got a clean title not a salvage title all that stuff you want to have that stuff all checked out before you buy because i mean a few months ago i had a customer they bought what looked like a nice corolla for 1500 bucks well the car needed 3 500 worth of work and the wheel fell off about two days later when he was driving down the road you don't want to have the mechanic check it out after you buy it before you buy it and then hey if he says it's good you argue over the price to see the best deal you can get but you can't beat the corolla or camry for a long life either way just try to find one if you can because people like them and they go fast when people sell them so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that bell you

Channel: Scotty Kilmer

Views: 262,175

Rating: 4.9263725 out of 5

Keywords: auto, auto repair, car, car advice, car diy, car repair, car review, cars, cars that won't last, diy, least reliable cars, least reliable used cars, low mileage, low mileage cars, mechanic, reliable, reliable car, repair, scotty kilmer, the worst cars to buy, unreliable cars, worst car, worst cars, worst used cars that won't last, never buy this car used with high mileage, high mileage car, used cars not to buy, never buy this car, used car, used cars, worst used cars

Id: CjQRHbwvp3o

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020