opinions on early 90's maximas

My Mon had I believe a '92 version, and my sister a '97, both bought new. They were both excellent cars in that they never caused too many problems, but both suffered from the same thing, VERY soft front springs. The backs seemed fairly stiff, but the fronts were horrible. My G35 suffers somewhat from the same thing, but not nearly as bad. Not sure why Nissan wanted that except to make sure they all understeered, but a quick shock and spring change really helps.

Otherwise, there was not much not to like, except fuel mileage isn't all that great. The '92 I believe used to average about 18mpg. My G35 is somewhat better at around 22...but that's about it. The '97 was a bit better than the '92 about 20mpg.

Most of the common problems have already been mentioned, but I'll second the window regulators, injectors, transmissions, and knock sensors (mostly on later DOHC models) have problems. Oh, and the knock sensor is under the intake and kind of a pain in the ass to change (at least on the DOHC, don't remember the location on the SOHC).

My Mom had a 91 SE when I was in high school. She kept it until she replaced it with a 2001 SE. Probably had 250k on it. I think we had to do the timing belt 4 times. Great car. I love the sporty look of the SE's. I do remember always wishing we had the DOHC 92 as I had read it had a top speed of 145. I don't know if that was accurate, but I sure wanted it.

just to reiterate. The 89-91 are all VG30E SOHC, no VLSD. 92-94 was 2 options. The GXE had the VG30E with a soft suspension and a glass automatic transmission. The SE had the VE30DE with a sport suspension and VLSD.

95-99 had the VQ30DE in it, NO vlsd available in USDM model except for possibly some late 99s.

both the VQ and the VE have the knock sensor under the intake manifold and is a fairly common failure (I have 2 in stock right now)

The DOHC automatic trans are fairly durable, the SOHC is not.

I know i keep mentioning the 4th gens but its only because i know more to say about them..

Anywho, a 4th gen will avg 24-27mpg if you're nice to it. Less if you aren't, of course.

The 4th gen auto has been into the 10s 1/4 mile.

The only experience ive had with the sohc 4spd was in the 2g maximas and i saw some with torque converter clutch issues. I also decided against the sohc in those cases because a 2g is noticeably lighter than a 3g with the same sohc motor, and still slow. My 3.0 and 3.3 dodge dynastys would rip them a new one.

AFAIK there isn't a remotely stock A/T 4th gen that can do 10s in the quarter. The best NA one I know of was in the 13s IIRC.

Yeah, my old 89 SE was pretty slow, but it was a great car to drive. What it lacked in acceleration it made up in the twisties. I would so buy another one if I found a clean, cheap one with a 5-speed.

And I know all about that knock sensor issue. My mom's just had that done. I didn't want to tackle that, so I left it to the pros.

Any other big issues with the 4th Gen's? I'm actually helping someone car shop, and she has about $3,000 to spend, and I was thinking one of those might be an option. My mom's car isn't a good example because she barely drives the thing enough to see any common problems sprout up!

4 th gen has no big failure issues, it's just not as much fun as a 3rd gen nor is it built as well.

FWIW, look at the I30 rather than the maxima. They tend to be better maintained and cheaper. Plus you can score a "t" model with VLSD and sport suspension. I miss mine

Good point. I forgot they made those.

I had a 97 I30t with 5speed. Scarce as hen's teeth. Put it on the aforementioned forum and sold it in a few days to a guy across the state who as happy as anything to get it.

awhile back I started a thread asking if anyone had ever seen a dead VQ in real life.

I still haven't.

I had a terrible experience with a '93 VG-engined one. Terrible car. Terrible fuel economy. Terrible handling. Acceleration was lackluster for how much gas it burned. Transmission totally sucked, even for an auto. Myriad little nagging problems (non-functioning cruise, even after the entire system had been replaced), a couple big problems with completely illogical symptoms (overheating while cruising on the highway in March, but not while stuck in traffic in the dead of August?!), and hard to work on to boot. I'm pretty sure you need to unbolt all the engine mounts and jack the engine up about 6 inches to change the damned thermostat.

Oh, and it burned a quart of oil every 200 miles. So my opinion is run far, far away.

I have a '96 I30t w/ the VLSD 5-speed. I would like the car a lot more if it had independent rear suspension instead of the lame twist beam thing, and the transmission is very notchy when cold. But it's easy to work on and overall a pretty good car.

My friend has a '97 Maxima 5-speed with 310k miles on it that still runs perfectly.

if anybody wants a NICE 3rd gen, i've got a 92 gxe auto with 38,000 original miles on it. it needs some love, and something in the trans crapped out (auto) from sitting for 10 years, but it has NO rust, and amazingly low miles.

700 bucks picked up in chicago. sitting in a garage until i do something with it otherwise.

we love these cars, and my brother has the highest HP 3rd gen in the world most likely, and has built the 2nd and 3rd highest HP ones too. weird little cars.

if only it wasn't a VG...

AFAIK there isn't a remotely stock A/T 4th gen that can do 10s in the quarter. The best NA one I know of was in the 13s IIRC.

Hehehehehe, i only meant that the transmission had been used in a 10 second car, thus making vague implications that its not a total piece of E36 M3.. thats all!

But yes, afaik, n/a 3rd, 4th, AND 5th gen maxs have been into the low 13s and high 12s. Pretty crazy.

awhile back I started a thread asking if anyone had ever seen a dead VQ in real life. I still haven't.

As far as im concerned, the vq is one of the best engines ever made (and i got that impression from the 190hp 90s ones, not the 350hp current ones, so its not a power thing), and i havent personally seen a dead one either.

VQ30 were solid motors, VQ35+ have sporadic build quality issues. Get a high mileage one and you are golden, low mileage notsomuch