Long Trip with my 1997 Sentra?

You're doing the right thing by asking; that's pretty heavy duty for a car it's age.

Keep looking for input about reliability, but if you maintain it well I'd say go ahead. A good mechanic -- if you know someone who isn't just going to rack up the charges -- should test drive the car to catch the noises, etc. that you don't pay attention to cause you drive it every day.

And you might have a back up plan.

HTH

If you have regularly maintained it, then you will be fine. What you may want to do though, just to get that extra bit of freshness and reliability out of your system is;

Change the coolant AND repalce the hoses and thermostat. The southwest desert, Florida and AC running continuously are going to push your car's coolant system like never before. Check your water pump as well. Make sure there are no leaks.

Change the tranny fluid. DO NOT do a tranny flush. Just drop the fluid, measure how much you dropped, then replace with fresh Dexron III fluid. It's just like changing the oil without the filter.

Oil and filter change if needed.

That's about it, really. You should be good after that.

CD

Have the car experienced any engine misfire or temporary stumble on acceleration? If so, take off the distributor cap and underneath there is a plastic cover held by 2 philips head screws. Under that cover there is a shiny metallic disk with lost of small holes. gently wipe that with a tissue paper. If you got oil on the tissue, the distributor seal that isolate the camshaft to the distributor is failing. The engine will stop running when there is enough oil mograting that way. This is a common priblem with Sentra and Altimas around that mileage (happened to my 1999 Sentra with 1.6L engine). I replaced mine using a new distributor from eBay for around $150.

160,000 miles is not much for a well maintained 1.6 Sentra. The key is how well maintained. Doing the cooling system, as suggested, is a very good idea. Change the drive belts while you're in there too. The water pump is a concern at that mileage if it has never been changed. My 1987 E16 Sentra still runs well at 333,000. The water pump has been changed twice, each time it went about 125,000 miles. Good luck. Enjoy the ride! Al

Ahhh, the student becomes the teacher. You have learnt well, my son:)

CD

Question from a student: Is there a way to replace just the distributor seal, rather than the entire distributor? And is it worth the trouble?

Can't be done. You need to replace the whole unit. Someone found a replacement on Ebay for $150. Normally they go for $300 approx.

CD