1998 Nissan Maxima SE

So the Sable blew up on me. The truck's alternator died and I was left without reliable transportation. This sucked a box of rocks. I had been looking through the thrifties for some time and hadn't quite decided what I was going to drive for the next year. Sarah mentioned to me that she wouldn't be adverse to having another car payment, but I wasn't too warm on that idea. However, that idea got into my head and started whispering its sweet, sweet logic into my inner ear.

Tim...it's ok to have another loan...we can afford it...

No.

Tim...you CAN have a nice car...you CAN have a car you don't have to fix anything on...you CAN do it...

Shut UP!

Tim...you really want a nice car...I know you do...now's your chance...

Hmm... Why should I deny myself?

So we went about shopping for a car the usual way. Consumer Reports, Consumer Guide, Kelly Blue Book, various 10 best lists and word of mouth had us narrowed down to just a few cars.

The Saturn SW2. I wanted this car to work for us. I like the idea of Saturns in general and this car's styling is neato. Unfortunately, it was tight for me and that means it would be impossible for Sarah.

Ford Escort Wagon. I wanted this car to work, too. No go though. For the same reasons as the Saturn. I didn't fit too well and so I didn't even drive it off the lot.

Oldsmobile Aurora. No, it's not on anybody's 10-best or any reliable used car list. I wanted to try it solely for the 4L Northstar V8 out of the Caddy it has under its hood. I tried one. It was like a leather cave. The ceiling was low, the dash was high, everything seemed overstuffed and it gave a feeling of being penned in. It had good pickup, but not as much as I was hoping for. If it were just for me, I might have considered it. It just didn't fit right for me and I'd bet my wife would get sick in it due to the low roof line and long windshield.

Ford Taurus Wagon. Surprisingly, this one was kinda boring. This one would have been fine if we didn't already have a big, floaty car. Since we did, it didn't really do much for us. That and the passenger footwell was absurdly small.

Ford Focus Wagon. The runner up. We darn near bought one. We would have bought one if we couldn't have found a decent example of the eventual winner. This car has it all: Pickup, handling, room and it's a station wagon. I REALLY liked this car.

The Nissan Maxima.

The winner. Wow. Wow.

From the moment I sat in the base model sitting on the lot, I was completely won over. I came home bubbling on about how nice it handled, how much room it had, how much I liked the ergos, how much punch it had and how reasonable it was priced. I looked and also found that it was on everyone's "yep, this here's a good 'un" list.

We looked at 5 or so. We nearly went for the white '96 with 71k on it. The only problem with it was that it smelled like it had just gotten out of the paint booth. I didn't know what had been repainted, but the paint was VERY good. Well, it turned out that it wasn't the paint booth it had just been released from, but the detail shop. What we were smelling was the seat cleaning solvent. Whatever the fact, it was a big fly in the ointment and gave weight to the car's other shortcomings. It had been treated fairly roughly. There were cuts in the vinyl everywhere and a big mark on the dash. The interior trim had been replaced by stainless steel looking panels and they looked cheap. It did handle very nicely and even the one we ended up buying didn't quite handle as well as this one did.

The others were all Green and all of them had some deal-killing problem. One had really ripped up paint. Another wasn't the SE version. Yet another looked horrid inside.

Finally, we located a nice, gold one up in the north 'burbs.

The sales guy was nice (all the sales guys and gals were nice--their bosses weren't) and we took it out for a drive. We liked it a lot so we brought it over to our mechanic to have him have a look. He gave it a clean bill of health and so that was that. We haggled for the better part of an hour and I got them down 1,300 dollars.

This is one nice car. It's fast, it has a really nice stereo (not the BOSE one), it handles like it's on rails and it has great A/C. What's not to like?

I wanted and got the SE model. That's the sports package option. What's different is that the suspension bushings are urethane instead of rubber, it has a spoiler in the back and it has the kickass cool white gauge package.

I settled for an automatic tranny mostly for practicality reasons. Sarah doesn't like to drive a stick and I have driven and didn't like driving a stick in the hour long rush hour commute I do every day. I would have preferred a stick, but a guy's gotta take these things into consideration. I think this car would flippin' RIP with a stick, but as it is, it's nice to be able to stomp foot on the gas and pretty much leave anything in my wake.

If I could change anything on the car, I'd have a 1/8" jack put in the stereo so I could plug my iPod directly in instead of having to use the cassette adapter. Yes, the car is that good.