Automatic transmission went out after 1,000 miles of owning it. Cost $450 for a used one to replace it. The transmission literally exploded at a stoplight downtown and dumped transmission fluid all over the road. $50 tow bill.
Driver side CV Drive axle broke in half and my car was towed home again for $50. New axle cost $65.
Only 1 windshield wiper works.
The heat/ac fan only works when turned on all the way to 4.
I have NO dash lights whatsoever. I checked all the fuses and bulbs, but found nothing wrong... Very Confusing.
Transmission shifts really hard out of 1st into 2nd.
Needs a new axle on the passenger side.
Bad exhaust leak.
Very noisy and rattly car.
It gets horrible gas mileage with my stop-and-go driving. I am averaging 17mpg with a 1.6 liter 4-cylinder.
Its VERY slow, and struggles to maintain 80mph on a flat straight stretch. Going uphill you better be happy with 50mph.
This car has a well designed interior, but it squeaks and rattles. The body of the car is cheap and dents easily. Typing up this report is making me angry because I wish this car would get stolen or at least coast down a hill into a black hole.
That is surprising about the gas mileage. I am not a fan of imported cars, but think you probably have a problem there that is causing your gas mileage to be that low.
Check for black smoke out of the tail pipe while you are accelerating, which would indicate if the car is running rich. If that is occurring, it could be caused by a number of things, which include a bad fuel pressure regulator (if that car has one; the alternative approach is to alter the fuel injector pulse width to adjust the air/fuel mixture), a bad oxygen, or other sensor.
If the oxygen sensor is bad, the car will not switch to closed loop mode after it warms up, meaning the computer will not finely adjust the fuel/air mixture based on the signals from the oxygen sensor. The result is, the car will stay in cold start mode, in which it will be running rich all the time, as if it was warming up. In some configurations, this can also happen if another sensor besides the oxygen sensor goes bad, because the computer will often not allow the fuel system to go into closed loop mode if it gets any trouble code.
Of course, we must not the basics, and in fact should always check those first. If you are having trouble maintaining speed up a hill, you might quite likely have a cylinder that is not functioning (i.e. not providing power). This could be from something as simple as a bad spark plug, distributor cap (if applicable), or in the worst case, bad compression. In either case, you would be shooting raw gas into the cylinder, but not getting a power stroke out of it. Definitely a waste of fuel...
Based on the symptoms you described, I would be inclined to think the problem is in fact either a cylinder that is not firing, or bad compression in one or more of the cylinders. Let us hope for the former. Obviously, please take these as guesses, with my not having looked at the car.
Like I said, I am not trying to play up Nissans, but I would expect you should be getting much better gas mileage than that.
Blown tranny's not not something that are obscure-in fact jeeps are notorious for it, but you say after 1000 miles of owning it, but how many did it have in total? if it had 300 000 km on it, no wonder.
As for axles it depends on how you drive it, and just be glad it only cost 65, For most domestics a new axle is over 200 dollars.
As for wiper, its usually as simply as a connecting arm falling off, simply take off the cover and reconnect it. or maybe the splines are sheared, again, just need to be replaced.
I find it amusing you mention the ac/heater. my bosses car is exactly the same. might be just a wiring problem, like the connectors aren't making true contact.
As for dash lights, the bulbs and fuses can be fine, maybe its short circuited. Two wires melting together and short circuiting is not an uncommon event.
Transmision shifting: Replace transmission fluid, and there is a fluid out there specifically designed for hard shifting, though the name escapes me. But I know its specifically designed to act as a lubricant between gears to prevent hard shifting.
Exhaust leaks are common, broken manifold bolts, or a rusted out section (it is 12 years old-comeon) will do just that.
All in all, your problems are normal, only they just happened to happen all at once. I've come across all of these problems and I just fix them and move on-and they never trouble me again.
Dear friends,
Frankly, I am a Nissanatic, yet I am not playing up with it.
My experience shows that normally it is hard to find wrongly designed Nissan, some minor problems might occurs, but no relation with the design. Simple efforts will fix it.
Especially for Sentra with poor mileage, it is against any law that my knowledge acquired.
Drive it smoothly and carefully and 40's mpg is easy.
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