My dad was going to get that, and didn't, the buy American kicked in and he got a ford (the car lasted all of 7 years before being junked). Like the Maxima or not, the funny thing is many of the 4th gens are still daily drivers today. Do I think that the beam axle was a cop out? You bet. Is the car weak on the anti corrosion, despite a fancy brochure showing the unibody being dipped and then in some sort of freeze machine? Another lie. Did it ever go 0-60 in 6.7 like the brochure said? Of course not, lie, try adding 1/2 sec. But they were relatively bulletproof (a couple of items broken on the LS430 never broke on the 1998 Maxima), and I'm hoping the LS430 is the same (I think it's better).

Flash forward 20 years, I am willing to bet the '18 that I drove will not be on the road. One, it's not built as well, two, it won't be worth fixing. I saw on the forum there were 2004+ Maximas which needed $4k+ ABS jobs. And with Japanese, there are no $249 rebuilds guaranteed for 5 years, like there are with German cars...

 

Could it be that the older Maximas that you all were fond of were built in Japan versus being built in the US of A today have anything to do with your perceived quality/reliability of these cars?

 

Random, somewhat off-topic, but my mother-in-law had a '95 Maxima up until recently, but she still had it when we got married. She drove me to run a wedding errand in it, and man, I did not expect her to drive it that quickly around turns. I guess that says something about the handling? But yeah, 22-year-old car, and seemed pretty solid overall. (She recently has upgraded to a used Lexus ES, didn't say what year.)

 

 

The 2019 Nissan Altima is rumored to have AWD as an option.

 

I drove a brand new one this week in Tennessee. I thought it was pretty nice compared to most rentals these days. It had adequate power, good engine noise, and drove pretty nice. I could never buy a FWD car because I hate getting pulled around and the jerkiness when accelerating, but it was a nice car.

I definitely like the maxima's of the 90s.

 

Yeah...I really despise all the midsize fwd cars. They all feel terrible compared to a good rwd platform. I feel the Nissan fwd platforms arent nearly as good as the Honda ones too.

 

I hear that. I've had a lot of seat time in a 2012 Camry SE V6, this was the first year for the redesign of the last gen car. There are certain things that chassis does very well, mainly it does handle fairly flat for a FWD family car, it does a decent job of putting the power down without jerking you side to side too bad(torque steer is still there). I think the 18" low profile/wide tires are part of the reason it doesn't torque steer as bad as some other high HP FWD cars Still though traction can be tricky coming out of a slow corner flooring it, or flooring it from a dead stop. That V6/automatic combo works well together, its FAST for a family car, I think the light weight of 3400lbs helps.

Still though, the RWD chassis of my 1992 SC300 is superior. The traction off the line is far superior, even doing a high RPM clutch dump, coming out of corners, you just feel a lot more confident, as to where that Camry, you are anticipating wheel spin and it jerking you all over the road. The steering is also way better, yes its a little more vauge on center in the SC300, but there is a lot more feedback through the wheel, you can get a sense of what the front tires are doing, that Camry might as well be playing a video game the steering is so damn numb and uncommunicative. Also the SC300 is way quieter inside and rides a lot nicer. Granted that Camry will smoke it in a drag race, but a race up or down the mountain, I feel a lot more confident pushing that SC than the Camry.