Nissan has a winner with this one!

On August 13, 2007 a Dodge Ram failed to yield to the right of way and pulled out in front of me driving my beloved 2001 Chevy Prizm. My car was totaled. I spent a few weeks in a rental car(See my 2007 Malibu review) while I was looking for another car. I wanted a car that I could afford, but I wanted it to be bigger than my Prizm was in case I get hit by another big truck. I finally after a lot of research on the website, at dealerships, and other websites, I settled for the 1999 Nissan Maxima and I do NOT regret it!

Performance:

This Maxima GLE has a 3.0L 190 HP engine and about 210 pounds of torque. It's a pretty respectable engine considering that this model's VQ engine won many awards such as the best V6 of the year. This car is pretty dang fast. Definatly faster than my Prizm or the rental Malibu's. I was actually pretty surprised that there was a 4 door car out there that was this fast. I merged onto the highway with ease. To illustrate I'll tell you a situation I was in that this car's acceleration got me out of. I was driving in Pace, FL. I don't know this city too well as I do not live there. I noticed that my lane was going to merge with the right lane but I was blocked in and couldn't merge. I gunned it, flew past all the cars, some teenager in a Honda Accord gunned his car, basically being a jerk, to try and keep me from getting in front of him. I still pulled past him with ease and got in front of him. Moral of the story: Need to pass a lot of cars plus one jerk? No problem!

Interior:

My interior is tan. It is a very nice looking interior. I really like the leather seats, which are quite comfortable. It is roomy, the BOSE stereo is VERY nice. The leather wrapped steering wheel is easy to grip. The white face gauges give it a sporty look. I like the air conditioning. You can set it to keep your interior at a certian tempature so that you won't have to always be messing with the air conditioner. You have to be careful with the cd player though. It tends to crap out after 5 or 6 years. All you have to do to fix that though is to put a new aftermarket laser in it and it wll be fine and last a long time. My only two complaints about the interior is that there are only two cup holders(I couldn't fit a bottle of soda into them either.) and there isn't enough compartments to store my stuff in.(At least for me.)

Exterior:

The Maxima looks pretty sporty and it's easy on the eyes. Now, my GLE apparently had some SE features put on it, such as the spoiler and the foglights. So my car looks a little bit different from the other GLE's out there. I thought mine was an SE when I was looking at it. The factory paint job comes off easier than it should though.

Braking:

The brakes are pretty good on this car. They are manual though and not power assisted so if you are used to power assisted brakes, this will take some getting used to.


Overall:

This car will appeal to the mass majority of consumers. At 150k miles this car is still going very strong. One note about this car is that the manual recommends at least 91 octane gas.(Although it can run at 87 at the cost of performance.) If you want a 4 door car that performs around the level of that of a sports car of its generation, look no further than the Maxima.