Buying Preowned Nissan Quest
In July 2006 I was looking for "decent" pre owned car. I never premeditated any make or model. I was interested in buying from a private seller to avoid any brokerage charge that goes into the pocket of dealer instead to that into pockets of the seller and the buyer.

However, I found that even though you could find plenty of low mileage clean cars with dealers it is difficult to find one with private seller. I am not sure why is so happens. Probably the clean cars from private sellers, sell easily and are difficult to find.

One day I found a Nissan Quest 2001 priced at with a "For Sale" board priced at $9800 standing in my office parking lot. On a closer look it was showing 49500 miles on it. This was apparently clean.

I did not take much time to finalise the deal and I got the Nissan Quest 2001 for $9000. That was not bad for this price. When I went for the registration, I was charged sales tax at 5% with the book value of $10500 instead of the actual price of $9000 that I paid.


Weird Speedometer Jumping Problem

Since then, I alongwith my wife have driven 2500 miles including two long trips of more than 500 miles. I have found two issue with it till now. On long drives, the
speedometer sometimes start behaving erratically. It will jump between showing 0 mph and say 50 mph. It seems to correct it automatically. It is weird. But it does not seem to affect driving any ways. I plan to take it to mechanic when the problem becomes more frequent so that I have ways to verify if the problem has beenrectified.

LED Display Does not Work

This was another problem that I found. The LED display on the dash board doen not function. It did work for a while on a long tour. The LED Display shows time, CD player, audio controls. I beleive there is some loose connection in the electronic circuitry. It does not affect the functionality of the car, but I would have likedto see the Clock running. I often need to see Clock on a long drive. I have to turn to my cell phone instead.


Brake Pads

The brakes seem to be lousy. It looks like it is time to change the Brake Pads. I plan to get it done next month or so. I beleive the previous owner never changed the brake pads and after 52K it is the right time to do it.

Audio and Video

The Nissan Sentra that I owned has a Video Cassete player that seems to work fine.There is an nice and Bright LCD screen It can be used to spoil your kids sitting on back seats. It also have a Composite Video IN connector that can
potentially be used with an external DVD player. I never used the VCP as I am mostly driving on front seat.

For audio, the Nissan Quest has a CD player, Cassette player and AM/FM. All of them work good. The LED screen, however does not function so I need to make a guess work when using some of the knobs.

Engine and Ride Quality

The Engine seems to have enough power to steer smoothly on uphill roads. There is no extra engine noise. I do feel the the engine looses a bit of its steam when accelarating from say 45 mph to 60 mph.The lower speed acceleration is good. The middle seat is free from any jerks, however there is noticeable jerk in the passengers sitting in the third row. one of the factors may be the fact the this model is front wheel drive.

Gas Mileage

The Nissan Quest 2001 is advertised as 18 mpg in city and 23 mpg on Highway. I actual drive I have found that the Highway mileage can be as high as 24.5 mpg provided we drive speed aroung 65 mpg. The lower the better. Driving at lower speed
is not practical at highways even if you want to. In city it is highly dependent upon the number of red lights and stop signs. However, I seem to get 19 mpg when driving to and returning back from my office.


Other Features

There is a Homelink Universal Transceiver system with this car. However, we live in a rented accomodation and do not have a garage to use it.


It obviously has a cruise control. However I used it just once. I fear lest the speedometer malfunction will create some serious trouble when using speedometer.

Conclusion

This review provides the perspective of a second hand car owner. With high gas prices people are reluctant to buy Minivans nowadays. However, you may get it for cheap and if your office is not too far or if you do not drive too much, you may like to consider this Minivan for reliability.
Amount Paid (US$): 9000
Condition: Used
Model Year: 2001