Topic awaiting preservation: Should I buy the Maxima or the Elantra?

I asume some of you people have cars....

So heres the $3,000 question....

Which should I buy?

the 90' Nissian Maxima (Bigger, older, presumably safer, but no air bag)

~or~

the 99' Hynduia Elantra? (Kinda beat up, has an airbag, but its a smaller probably less safe car)

Ok fire up the debate team...



- Face the Present
- AIM: MASKKKK

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Two months ago I had similar doubt.
Which car to buy? My budget was a littler higher than yours.
It was then that I surprisingly found out that Americans don't like American cars, their own cars!
I don't know if you are American, but that was a surprise.
My doubt was: should I buy a used, old, small, sometimes ugly and presumably better Asian car (according to American reviews) or should I stick to a used, larger, newer, more beautiful and presumably worse American car? For the same amount of money, these were my choices.
I ended up buying an American car because I like more space and newer cars: I'm tall.
So far, so good. The car is wonderful.
I'll have to sell the car by the end of June/04. If someone is interested, please, let me know...

PS - this post wasn't of so much help, was it? You're stuck between an Asian car an another Asian car. Well, my motto is: the newer the better, even if it's smaller, unsafer, whatever...

PS2 - Air bag? What is it for? This would never be an important point of decision for me. Just drive safely, passively safe.

The Maxima is certainly the better of the 2 cars - airbags or no airbags.

What is the milage on each car ?

Did you have a look under the hood to see what shape the engines are in ?
Burning oil ? Powersteeringpump leaking? Waterpump ? and on it goes ..... these are all costly repairs even on old cars.

Interval of oilchanges ? any records avalable in regards to maintenance ?

What shape are the bodies in ? Rust and if where ?

Has either one been in an accident ?

Have you taken either one for a good run ?

Guess that is it for now could think of 20 more questions for that matter.

sib

Get a professional mechanic to look over both of them. If either or both of the poeple selling them won't let a mechanic look at them, don't buy them, they've got something to hide.

Ok we went with the Nissian....

My Dad called up the Hynduia dealer this morning and go him outta bed, boy was he happy....
The conversation went something like this:

Dad: "We aren't gonna buy the Elantra"
Dealer: "I'm going back to bed. *CLICK*"


I picked the Nissian because where I'm going there's alot of high winds and the Elantra would just get blown off the road, according to carpoint.com

Well thanks for the advice,



- Face the Present
- AIM: MASKKKK

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quote:

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It was then that I surprisingly found out that Americans don't like American cars, their own cars!

---

I happen to love my Chevy.

BTW, good luck with the car, Maskkkk. Be careful out there, the road is full of idiots.

[This message has been edited by Raptor (edited 08-14-2003).]

Decision's already made, butI'll just add that I would have gone with the Nissan hands down.

Nissans are truly a great car all around.

*grumbles*

I can't stand rice burners.

Yep, of the two, I would have gone with the Nissan (I've had my '90 Nissan Sentra for a couple years now, and it's been fairly reliable, although it threw a rod last spring on my way home from taking one of my finals...).

However, as for Americans not liking American made cars/trucks, that's not me at all. Without a doubt, the next vehicle I buy will be a Dodge truck (probably a Dakota that's a couple years old). But I'm not in any real hurry, so I'll wait until a real good deal presents itself

I take that back... My next vehicle will more than likely be a bike (which will definately be Asian).

Kelly Blue Book


Code - CGI - links - DHTML - Javascript - Perl - programming - Magic - http://www.twistedport.com
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I, too am very fond of my American car.

However , I agree most Americans are tasteless sheep.

^LOL. Agreed

DB I like your hood. I'm probably going to get something similar for my Cavalier.

Edit: Lord_F, ouch! Did you drop in a new engine? Or have you not done anything about it yet?

[This message has been edited by Raptor (edited 08-14-2003).]

I never really understood all this obsession ovre which country a car was made in, or what it looks like, or any of that...if the car runs, gets you from A to B with a stop over at C on the way with a minimum of fuss, and is OK on it's fuel efficiency, then what's the problem with where it was made...

mind you, this is coming from a 19 year old who doesn't even have his learner's permit yet...or a car...or money...*sigh*...someone wanna employ me?

The country the car was made, or maybe the country the car was made for, tells a lot. If you are in America, American cars or non-American cars made for the American market are usually big, comfortable, automatic, lots of cup holders and it's interesting that it really makes no difference having a small or a big car here because the country seems to be made for big cars so, if you get a small one, you are just going to have less space.
If you go to Europe, that's another history. European cars or cars made for Europe are small, very small, as an average, so small that they never make it to the USA. And if you have a big car in Europe, you're going to be in trouble because the cities just can't hold more cars. The parking lots are small, everything is small, the streets are narrow, etc.
Unfortunately, in Brazil our cars have mostly the European design, which means our roads are full of small cars, despite the fact that we are a large country. The problem in Brazil is not that we are running out of space, but that our people don't have the money to buy small cars. What if they were bigger and as a consequence more expensive.
So, in USA, big cars because there is too much land for them. In Europe, small cars because there are too many cars for them. In Brazil, small cars because there isn't enough money to buy them (also because our Government imposes too much taxes in the cars making a small one to be very expensive).

I really should have specified on the Australian market, where we have both worlds of the car-market, for we have streets board and narrow (where, apparently, there a people crying 'cockles and mussles alive-alive-oh', but that's another story). In Australia there's alwasy been this huge debate 'ford or holden' going on and on and on, and it really gets to you after a while. I really don't care quite frankly, give me a ford, give me a holden, give me a renault, audi, subaru, mitsubishi, nissan, hyundai, chrysler, anything, I don't care so long as it goes and doesn't chuck a tantrum every three seconds, give me an obscure russian brand of car that in order to go forward you have to put it in 'H'.

I mean, I understand that some cars are better in some aspects than others, some last better under different conditions, some are more prone ot certain types of faults than others, but if this is the case, why not just buy a car that is going to be ok for your situation and ecomonic position? That's what really gets me...that most of the car people here in australia don't buy a car becuase of these well reasoned...ah...reasons...they buy it becuase of how it looks, or becuase they're a ford kinda guy, or a holden man. Do they think in the end that car car gives two flying hoots what they think? It's still ginog to break down or run when it wants to!

Raptor: Yep, I went right to work on it, and 8 months later it's as goos as new

For anyone that cares to know why 8 months...
Considering it was right at the end of the semester and I was just about broke, I went to a couple wrecker yards until I found my car (well, a reasonable facsimile thereof) with an engine that ran. And I ended up finding one that was there because whoever was in it was rear-ended pretty good, but the front end was without a scratch. Since I'm a gambler, I dropped the $100 on that one and went to work at my house. A month later, or thereabouts, it was in and running... Unfortunately it had a blown head gasket, which presented itself almost immediately.
So now, we have a decision... Pull this engine back out, replace the head gasket (not the easiest task in the world, especially when you only have a handfull of hours each weekend to work on it), or pull it out and buy a remanufactured block for just over $700 (buying a new block was out of the question financially). Ended up going the remanufactured route, and was able to send the complete block (the one with the blown head gasket) in as exchange, which cut between $150 and $200 off (not bad considering I paid $100 for it originally ). Wait a month or however long it was, for that block to arrive, and spent a little less time putting it in (I've already done this once, recently, so most of it seemed pretty familiar ). Once it was in, started it up, but it just didn't seem quite right... After lots of tweaking and listening and futzing around, it turns out that it too has a blown head gasket...
Two in a row?? The first one is understandable, and that's one of the risks of trying a junkyard motor, but another one? Newly remanufactured? I talk to a few people and apparently when they're putting them back together, and they set the head down on the block, it sometimes gets bumped or doesn't sit just right the first time, so it's entirly possible to have a blown head gasket... grrr...
Call them up, tell them what's up, pull this motor back out, swap it with another (no charge since they screwed up). Wait awhile again, and get working putting this one in, in record time because I'm getting pretty damn good at swapping motors in this car. (the 2nd motor went in and out twice because of "complications," ie I forgot about the plate that goes between the engine and transaxle until I was starting on the bolts connecting the two. ::sigh:: That was a long weekend.)
So after I get this one in and get it running, everything seems right, but it keeps overheating (not because of a blown head gasket, thank whichever god you choose to believe in). After about a month of tinkering with everything from the ignition timing to the thermostat to the electrical system, I'm just about tired of this project (been at it for over 6 months now). So I finally give in and take it to a shop, the same guy I went to the one other time I took it in (to have the A/C converted over and recharge the freon). He has it for about a month, and is stumped as well, and it's relagated to a side project because apparently mine isn't the only car there to be worked on ::gasp::, besides, I still had my mom's old truck that I drove through high school and that my brother is driving now. About a month later, he finds that there's a small cork piece that blocks coolant from getting to the top of the block and you're supposed to remove it to fill that little spot independent of the rest of the cooling system, otherwise you end up with an air bubble that never gets flushed from the system...
That one little thing is what made up my mind to never buy another Nissan... Granted, it's a small thing, and live and learn, and all that, but pffffffft. However, it's still a nice little car that gets great gas mileage, so I'm not in any big hurry to get rid of it, but when the truck I'm looking for comes along, it won't take much to convince me to get it

Meanwhile, there are lot sand lots of other little problems that arose with each engine, that are best explained by Murphy's Law

Nissan's suck... hyundai sucks more. Buy an Italian car


It's only after we've lost everything...
That we're free to do anything...

I luvs me mah Pontiac Grand Prix.

:::11oh1:::

[This message has been edited by krets (edited 08-15-2003).]

If I could choose any car I wanted, I would choose a Lincoln Town Car.