2015 Nissan Sentra S 1.8L 4 cylinder gasoline from North America

Summary:

Economical

Faults:

Nothing has gone wrong with the car except for things that Nissan had recalled.

The first was the Takata airbag recall. I received a letter in the mail for the airbag recall, and called my local dealership and made an appointment. The dealership replaced the front airbags in under an hour and I was on my way.

The second recall I did not receive any mail regarding it. One day after work I noticed a weird grinding noise coming from the rear of the car. Upon closer inspection I noticed it was coming from the rear drum brakes. Once I got home, I did an online search and found there was a recall for the rear drum brakes. Went to the dealership again, this time with no appointment, and had the rear brakes replaced.

General Comments:

Overall the car has been amazing for what it is. The Sentra is not a GTR or an Infiniti M56 (or Q-whatever Infiniti calls them now), it's a relatively cheap compact sedan and it does an amazing job at being that. I get about 36 miles to the gallon on the highway average; I've read the CVT gets closer to 40.

The manual transmission shifts smooth, the clutch is a little light and takes a little time to get used to, but once you have the hang of it, it's a very easy manual transmission to live with.

The suspension is smooth over normal pavement, but once you hit potholes it becomes unsettled fairly quickly.

The interior is actually very nice in this price point. The dashboard is made of a soft touch material, and the seats are very supportive and the materials look to be very durable in the long run.

The Sentra S has four speakers for the audio; pretty basic, but they sound alright if you adjust the settings on the radio for bass and treble. The interior is also surprisingly quiet for a compact car; it's very easy to have conversations with passengers or listen to music without too much exterior noise entering the cabin. The A/C also blows extremely cold, which is very important living here in Florida.

The engine is also very smooth and relatively quiet compared to many other compact cars.

I do all of the maintenance to this car myself since it saves me money and I enjoy working on cars. I use Mobil 1 synthetic 0w20 with a Mobil 1 oil filter and change it every 10,000 miles, and now with 91,000 miles, the engine still runs amazingly and has given me zero problems.

Overall, after two and a half years of ownership and 91,000 miles this car has been amazing at doing what it does best, being an economical compact car.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 16th October, 2017

22nd Oct 2017, 03:27

Nice review - well written.

7th Dec 2017, 04:08

Thank you. I plan on updating it every now and then when the mileage goes up. I just replaced the stock Bridgestone Turanza tires with Goodyear Eagle LS tires I got on sale for Black Friday, which seem to be quieter and smoother over bad pavement. Those Bridgestone tires did last me 91,000 miles though; rotated them religiously every 10,000 miles.

11th Feb 2018, 23:29

Original poster here.

The Sentra recently just hit 97,000 trouble free miles.

I replaced the factory spark plugs last weekend, not because it was running bad or anything, but because with 97k miles I thought it was the right time to change them out.

I replaced the factory NGK plugs with Denso iridium spark plugs. The job was very simple; the only snag I hit was that you do need a THIN WALLED 14mm spark plug socket to fit inside the spark plug tubes. A regular 9/16th socket will not fit inside the tube and you'll be running the risk of the socket getting stuck in there. The coils are attached with one 10mm bolt and there are a few of what I guess are vacuum hoses near the coils that have to be disconnected.

Overall, extremely easy to replace the plugs and the car is still running great averaging 35 MPG. I'll be flushing the coolant and replacing the manual transmission fluid in the next few months.