2002 Nissan Altima SE 3.5 from North America - Comments

This car has literally been maintenance free.

The car has excellent performance and handling. It's a great family sedan that performs like a sports car. The seats are very comfortable and the power drivers seat is adjustable to suit just about anyone. The fuel mileage is excellent at 10.9L/100km City and 7.9L/100km Highway. I am a high mileage driver and so far in 74,000 km, my total average mileage is 9.4L/100km. The car is also very quiet at highway speeds. Body panel fit and finish is excellent.

The negatives of this car;

The radio has very poor reception. You can hear an electrical engine noise on most stations unless you are very close to the local radio transmitters. This is common in all 2002 Altima's.

The interior finish is cheap looking and does not reflect the fine quality that was put into the rest of the car.

I agree with your review, except for the fact that the seat in my Altima is far from comfortable. After only 5700 miles, the seat makes me feel as if I have no support on the left side and I find myself constantly re-adjusting the seat and myself.

The dealership says that I need to raise the seat up higher to make it firmer, but I feel that the seat should be able to be adjusted to where I am comfortable driving. I find myself having trouble convincing the dealer that my seat is not right and they are quite reluctant on replacing the seat under warranty.

There is also a clicking noise coming from the seatbelt section next to the center console, a rattle in the dash somewhere behind the radio, and another rattle inside the driver door.

I hope you mean "trouble free" and not "maintenance free." I know most people know what you mean, but I still cringe when I hear that expression applied to a car.

After about two years with this car I am fairly pleased. I've only had to take it back to the dealer one time for a problem with the driver-side power window not rolling down.

Aside from that window issue, there are two problems:

1) I live in Fargo, ND. As you can imagine it gets quite cold here in the winter time. In my Altima I got the premium Bose sound system. In extreme code the radio will not function. Until about 15-30 minutes of driving. Not a huge problem, but heck, this was about a $1000 option so I feel it should work all the time. My brother-in-law is an Electrical engineer and told me that amps don't like to work in extreme cold so that could be a possible diagnosis.

2) Very very rarely I will go to start the car and nothing. It doesn't turn over or even act like I have turned the key. My solution to this is to put the car into neutral and it starts right up (this is an automatic transmission).

Both problems are fairly minor, and don't happen that often. So rare, that I am not sure that I could take it to the dealer to have them look at the issue as it will likely not be happening at the time.

Overall I like the looks and power. Looking back I would have probably gone for the traction control as the snow/ice here don't go too well with the horsepower of this vehicle.