2005 Nissan Sentra 1.8 from North America - Comments

Car gives horrible ride on highway. Engine and road noise is overwhelming. The car has to struggle to maintain highway cruising speed of 70mph.

Gas mileage is mediocre, only about 22mpg. I expected more from Nissan.

Silly me!!

This car is great for around town errands, but for highway commutes it just plain sucks. The engine has to maintain high rpms at highway cruising speeds.

The engine vibration is too much to bear on long trips.

What a piece of crap,5th gear ratio is inadequate for this vehicle.

I disagree, idk whats wrong with your car, but it sounds like there is a problem if you can't maintain a highway speed of 70. I drive all highway to and from work "110 miles a day" and I have no problem crusing at 80mph, with the RPM at 3200 and getting 33mpg to top it off.

Although mine is an automatic, and it sounds like your is manual, that shouldn't make a difference, in fact your should be better on gas. As for the engine noise, when I bought my car there was a significant road noise, I thought it was the hub barrings because of the loud wooshing noise at high speeds, it turned out to be the tires, dealer replaced all 4 tires for me and now its fine... and at 58000 miles it drives like a dream.

2005 Nissan Sentra S 1.8L. Bought this in 2007 with 110k on odometer (hard to believe - 110k in less than 3 years, it's mostly highway mileage though), so far a year of driving is pretty smooth, no major/minor problems/indications, right now it has 120k miles. The previous owners used this car for towing, so as a precaution I replaced transmission fluid, coolant, brake fluid, put new tires and brake pads/shoes, none of these were a problem, I'm just extra careful, driving steep mountains in NM.

What I do like:

-because of a little weight, fast accelerations/stops with a driver only, but if 3 people inside, goes slower/weaker;

-it gets 35 mpg on average, highway/city as 50/50;

-cornering is nice, I put Z-rated tires on it, did the balancing/alignment, suspension can definitely handle more than this model weights, 16 inch aluminum disks, tires 205/50R16;

-short height, a driver seats lower than in Civic/Corolla, more equilibrium and less air resistance; at high speed

-engine performance: 2000 rpm at 60 mph, 3000 rpm at 80 mph, 4000 rpm at 100 mph; maximum torque comes at 2500 rpm, which is typical city rpm and much better than any Honda/Toyota class related model, they give a mix torque at 4000 rpm, Nissan engines rules! ;

-fancy dancy anti theft ignition lock system;

-a lot of space under the hood as for a small car, easy to access most of the parts;

-no timing belt and expensive replacement, a lifetime chain instead;

-powered windows/steering, which is unusual for small cars like this;

-overall a reliable model and very cheap to maintain;

What I dislike:

-driving uphill in the mountains is harder than Civic/Corolla, it's 7000-10000 ft altitude, low pressure;

-noisy at high speed, a little weight trades off with sound insulators, plus a timing chain;

-very limited leg space at a passenger seat behind a driver;

-front disk brakes are good, but rear drums look like a cheap bargain, Nissan should have set up disk brakes on rear wheels as well, an inexpensive investment into performance/safety, although the car weights 2450 lbs, brakes stop the car just fine, I drive steep mountains sometimes, so some extra braking power would be great;

-a saloon looks economical, after all nice things they put into a drive train, it would be worth to spend an extra thousand on a saloon as well;

Conclusion: it's a perfect car for an everyday commutes as well as for highway. Cheap to maintain, fast as for 35 mpg. My next car will be the same model. The newer Sentra 2006 is bigger, taller, wider, and heavier, worse mpg. Can't see any progress after 2005 Sentra, it's a good competitor for Civic 2004, and cheaper.

Crucial: replace fluids and filters in time, and it will run longer than any Civic/Corolla.

God I love 16' disks with wide race Z tires.

I have a 2005 Nissan Sentra with a 1.8 liter motor.

At 7,000 miles it blew its first motor.

Repaired, 33,000 miles just blew a second motor.

Since I cannot produce oil change records, even though I work as a mechanic, and have given this car its proper maintenance, Nissan refuses to repair my car.

I lodged a complaint with NYS consumer protection who forwarded my complaint to NYS attorney general, now waiting for them to take action.

Has anyone else had problems with this Nissan, feel free to contact me at pitroad123@aol.com

with any suggestions.