joe waffled on in a quite bewildering manner to produce...
Hi all,
>
> I've just purchased a 96P Nissan Almera 1.4 GX with 60K on it for the > wife.
> Paid £2050. Maybe £300 too much, but I consider that irrelevant if I
> get 5 years of trouble free.
> I took a chance as it had minimal MOT, but I got it done with no
> problems except an advisory on one brake pipe (rust) for next time.
> It had a local owner with 6 years of main dealer service history.
> According to the vendor, it has never been in a collision or had
> anything repaired! I believe them.
> Prior to that, it was an Enterprise Rent-a-car for its first 6 months > and 9K miles. >
> I've included below my initial impressions, but welcome other comments > and rebutals. >
> I'd also welcome any insight on problem areas to look out for, etc. >
> 1. Power steering is very light (too light really).
> 2. Front suspension is soft. The MOT guy mentioned this, but said they > are like that.
> 3. Engine is superb. Very quiet and smooth.
> 4. Gearbox is very nice and precise.
> 5. Gearing. Does about 45mph at 2000 rpm (in 5th). To me it seems to
> have enough power to do 50mph at 2000 rpm, so in my view the ratio
> could be a bit higher.
> 6. Noisy. Road noise, not engine noise. I've just replaced the tyres
> with 4 x Michelin Energy (£168 on special at ATS). Very slight
> improvement.
> 7. Limited boot capacity.
> 8. Fuel Economy. Not checked in detail yet, but seems excellent.
> 9. Rust. Closer inspection underneath showed one or two points where
> that might be the very first stages of development.
> 10. Battery (the original, so we may be near the end). The vendor told
> me it was left for 3 weeks and flat when they returned (with loss of
> radio code - now fixed). I've had no problems, but it's not winter. >
> TIA for your thoughts.
> I'm happy so far.
>
> Cheers,
> joe
As an ex car hire company boss and an ex Nissan salesman I've had a fair bit of Almera experience. (too much for my liking)
Fuel economy = crap, diving fuel gauge syndrome, seems great until you do the maths. I used to run my own private Vauxhall Carlton 3.0 GSi 24v Auto on days off to save money. (salesmen really don't earn much selling Nissans)
reliability = excellent
Power steering is normally light on these, they were designed for frail old women to go shopping in
Rust is something I don't know about, never saw any in 3 years I was involved with them and there were only ex fleet cars ever for sale on forecourts because Nissan used to weld unsuspecting customers into the damn things with finance deals. This meant all the cars I used to deal with were either new, ex fleet, or ex "demos" with 12 miles on the clock and had only ever been shuffled round the forecourt by opportunistic sales managers for the past 18 months. Alternatively they were ex-hire cars (Avis had hundreds of them), which were returned after 10000 miles or 6 months and then spent the next 12 months being shuffled round the site.
The batteries do tend to go flat after 2-3 weeks of inaction.
I'm not an Almera fan to be honest, they caused me many a sleepless night as a salesman. They were however excellent to use as hire car fodder. Unremarkable, reliable, and actually handle quite well. Most buyers seemed to be upgrading from knackered old Sunnys or Bluebirds and they were always happy with them.
Pete M