Choosing Between 97 Tercel CE and 98 Sentra GXE

Hi folks,

I'm hoping you can help me out with this decision. Here are the choices:

1998 Nissan Sentra GXE -- auto, air, 72,000km or 44,000miles, $8000 CDN

1997 Toyota Tercel CE -- auto, air, 44,000km or 27,000miles, $7000 CDN

Both cars are in excellent shape. Looking to use each car until it dies. Our other car is maintained with oil, filter, fluid flush religiously twice a year. Rustproofing done on each annually.

My questions: Which will last longer? Which will have lesser maintenance costs over its remaining life? Ultimately, which is the better buy?

Reply to
Raj Capoor
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Since you are not worried about resale value... I'd lean tward the Nissan Sentra over the Toyota Tercel CE.

While I am typicaly a Toyota fan... i've never been a fan of the Tercel 3a series engine. Even if you were to swap out the stock 1.5l engine in favor of 4a-fe corolla engine, the nissan engine still has one point in it's favor. the ga16 series uses a timming chain, rather then a belt. I'm not sure if the 4a will easily go in a later tercel, i've been told it fits in the earlier ones. While Toyota engines particularly the 4a series will practily last forever, that timming belt will need to be replaced at some point. They get slack, and eventually will brake. The nissan's chain probally won't break in it's lifetime. I had a chain in my old 1979 Toyota Corolla, and still do after over 500,000km.

Tercel engines between roughly 1987 and 1994 were not considered to be their best run by some. Issues with valve guides and rod berrings are common complaints. Unsure about later models.

In the Tercel's favor, the 3a and 4a series engines have been in service for a very long time. The 3a-c was in service as early as 1983 that i've seen personaly in the corolla-tercel. The 4a series i'm positive was used till atleast 1998. If it fails, it shouldn't much of a problem getting a used one at all, or a rebuilt. Nissan engine doesn't have this much history to it, I believe it was first used in 1991 for the Sentra.

In the Nissan's favor it's got more room and is far more comfortable then the Tercel.

Gas Mileage I'm not sure if you'd notice the diffrence. I haven't owned my

1998 nissan base model long enough to judge, but I observed 35mpg on arco gas. In theory the Tercel is rated higher on fuel effency but don't know anyone with a 1997 tercel. Now if we are talking 1997 corolla... had a friend who observed 40mpg using Chevron high octain gas. I'm too lazy to convert to KM/L. And I do have the manual base model, the 1997 Corolla I'm refering to was also a manual base model. I don't bother looking at automatics as I would never consider one.

Handling... test driving one 1997 tercel I did find it a bit more fun to drive vs my 1998 base model Sentra.

Rusting I have no clue about, we don't salt the roads often here so I'm not worried about it.

Personaly, I won't consider Tercel at all. It's smaller then the Corolla in body and engine and it's difficult to say if you'll save fuel. Corolla would be a diffrent story but I went with the Nissan Sentra base model. It was cheeper, in my case roughly $4200 in canadian dollars, and use of the chain rather then the belt to me means one less thing to screw with. While I think resale value would suck, I plan to drive it it's dead.

Reply to
matt zukowski

Hopefully they have better automatic tranny's than my '94 Maxima GXE and '91 Sentra GXE -- the Max is on it's 3rd tranny while the Sentra needs it's second right now. They have 248000 km and 223000 km respectivley.

Norm ____________ snipped-for-privacy@shaw.ca

Reply to
FatherGuido

Thanks a lot guys. The truckload of info helped. I think we're gonna go for the Nissan.

Reply to
Raj Capoor

You're welcome.

Good luck,

John D. (1973 Datsun 1200 and 1995 Nissan 200SX SE)

Reply to
John D.

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