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2009 Nissan Maxima 3.5 SV
2009 Nissan Maxima 3.5 SV
Price (as tested): $38,500
Powertrain: 290-horsepower 3.5-liter V6, continuously variable transmission, front wheel drive
Includes: 18-inch alloy wheels, dual sliding sunroofs, xenon headlamps, power rear sunshade, paddle shifters, rear bucket seats, XM satellite radio, Bluetooth, Eucalyptus wood trim, hard-drive navigation system, six-CD changer, intelligent key, Bose audio system
EPA mileage: 19 city, 26 highway
Powertrain: 290-horsepower 3.5-liter V6, continuously variable transmission, front wheel drive
Includes: 18-inch alloy wheels, dual sliding sunroofs, xenon headlamps, power rear sunshade, paddle shifters, rear bucket seats, XM satellite radio, Bluetooth, Eucalyptus wood trim, hard-drive navigation system, six-CD changer, intelligent key, Bose audio system
EPA mileage: 19 city, 26 highway
Correction notice: Last week's story about the new Chevrolet Camaro SS accidentally overstated one of the car's performance stats. The Corvette-derived LS3 engine setup, available in the manual transmission version of the car, produces 420 lb.-ft. of torque and 426 horsepower.
The Woods of Eastern Pennsylvania – When The Dude calls for your attendance at a secret birthday party in the hippie-filled rolling hills of Amish Country, one must abide. So when a little time allowed me to pay a visit to my Big Lebowski-reminiscent acquaintance, it seemed like a great location to test out a civil and road-worthy machine. Even better, the rolling hills of the greater Allentown area are full of those wonderfully complex country roads that no one except longtime inhabitants can explain or adequately describe, directions-wise (“you need to go six miles down to where Bill Johnson used to have his garlic farm, then hang a left at the place where the old mill was, and then go up the unmarked driveway about half a mile and you'll find us”) … so we figured we'd be able to put any machine through its paces.
Luckily, despite what now seems to be a pretty serious meltdown in the whole automobile industry supply chain, I was able to get my hands on a new Nissan Maxima and found it to be a great ride for the weekend. I'd also had a Maxima a few months earlier in Colorado and both experiences revealed it to be a pretty substantial vehicle.
The most strategic problem we encountered with the vehicle which describes itself, mostly accurately, as “the four-door sports car,” was the fact that the navigation system could not actually point us to where we were going. One point for Rural Pennsylvania, zero for Maxima.
But after a series of rambling phone calls with The Dude and a decision to more or less turn off the nav and follow the aforementioned anecdotal instructions, it did provide a chance to more closely focus my attention on the Maxima experience, and not the generally overwhelming doodaddery.
The Maxima is a substantial vehicle, with a largesse that reminded me of the big Lexus GS 460, and its 290 horsepower is nothing to sneeze at. I just found that the automobile's continuously variable transmission, while a boon for fuel efficiency, tended to step over the line into somewhat annoying, especially when all 290 of those horses were required.
Not quite as distracting as the old “oh my God did I blow the clutch” feeling of earlier generation CVTs, but still producing a tangible feeling of disconnection from the 3.5-liter V6's full fury.
It does help produce a rather consistent 26-plus miles per gallon on the highway. And that's not bad, considering the automobile's ample attributes, such as a spacious cabin, a massive trunk and a completely passenger-friendly back seat. Although, as you remember, the new Camaro with an engine twice as big also got the same mileage.
Ride and handling will also permit a reasonably ambitious amount of chucking about, as I found when I piloted the Maxima out of the hills a few days later and back to Philadelpia; 18-inch tires and the sheer forces of physics kept things from getting too crazy.
The Maxima's looks find the vehicle in the almost Chris Bangle-inspired realm of rounded angles, with an oddly Jaguar/Corvette-styled series of shoulders and hips above the front and back wheels. It's contour that's prominent when you look in the rear-view mirror; the overall experience, as I mentioned, certainly reminded me of other large sports sedans such as the Lexus GS.
Interior details are about the blackest mix of black in the industry, and, consequently, occasionally hard to see. In well-lit circumstances, you can make out an intriguing array of surface treatments, ranging from rectangular air vents to an embossed, leather-styled, stippled plastic, multi-contoured dash.
Nissan's brand-wide monochromatic orange lighting is a little hit-or-miss, but does make things easier on the eyes. Equipped with navigation, the gigantic silver twisty knob control apparatus allows infinite zoom of the maps (not the best-rendered maps in the business, sadly) and moderately easy control of trip computer and music functions; without a nav system, you get another orange-tinted readout and an equally impressive stereo.
Seating aspires to BMW standards, including pull-out support under your thighs, with sporty bolstering and solid leather comfort.
In the end, quite a fine vehicle for my mystic ramblings, and a reasonably good choice for sport-minded drivers who want to provide much space to their passengers. The Dude approves.
The Woods of Eastern Pennsylvania – When The Dude calls for your attendance at a secret birthday party in the hippie-filled rolling hills of Amish Country, one must abide. So when a little time allowed me to pay a visit to my Big Lebowski-reminiscent acquaintance, it seemed like a great location to test out a civil and road-worthy machine. Even better, the rolling hills of the greater Allentown area are full of those wonderfully complex country roads that no one except longtime inhabitants can explain or adequately describe, directions-wise (“you need to go six miles down to where Bill Johnson used to have his garlic farm, then hang a left at the place where the old mill was, and then go up the unmarked driveway about half a mile and you'll find us”) … so we figured we'd be able to put any machine through its paces.
Luckily, despite what now seems to be a pretty serious meltdown in the whole automobile industry supply chain, I was able to get my hands on a new Nissan Maxima and found it to be a great ride for the weekend. I'd also had a Maxima a few months earlier in Colorado and both experiences revealed it to be a pretty substantial vehicle.
The most strategic problem we encountered with the vehicle which describes itself, mostly accurately, as “the four-door sports car,” was the fact that the navigation system could not actually point us to where we were going. One point for Rural Pennsylvania, zero for Maxima.
But after a series of rambling phone calls with The Dude and a decision to more or less turn off the nav and follow the aforementioned anecdotal instructions, it did provide a chance to more closely focus my attention on the Maxima experience, and not the generally overwhelming doodaddery.
The Maxima is a substantial vehicle, with a largesse that reminded me of the big Lexus GS 460, and its 290 horsepower is nothing to sneeze at. I just found that the automobile's continuously variable transmission, while a boon for fuel efficiency, tended to step over the line into somewhat annoying, especially when all 290 of those horses were required.
Not quite as distracting as the old “oh my God did I blow the clutch” feeling of earlier generation CVTs, but still producing a tangible feeling of disconnection from the 3.5-liter V6's full fury.
It does help produce a rather consistent 26-plus miles per gallon on the highway. And that's not bad, considering the automobile's ample attributes, such as a spacious cabin, a massive trunk and a completely passenger-friendly back seat. Although, as you remember, the new Camaro with an engine twice as big also got the same mileage.
Ride and handling will also permit a reasonably ambitious amount of chucking about, as I found when I piloted the Maxima out of the hills a few days later and back to Philadelpia; 18-inch tires and the sheer forces of physics kept things from getting too crazy.
The Maxima's looks find the vehicle in the almost Chris Bangle-inspired realm of rounded angles, with an oddly Jaguar/Corvette-styled series of shoulders and hips above the front and back wheels. It's contour that's prominent when you look in the rear-view mirror; the overall experience, as I mentioned, certainly reminded me of other large sports sedans such as the Lexus GS.
Interior details are about the blackest mix of black in the industry, and, consequently, occasionally hard to see. In well-lit circumstances, you can make out an intriguing array of surface treatments, ranging from rectangular air vents to an embossed, leather-styled, stippled plastic, multi-contoured dash.
Nissan's brand-wide monochromatic orange lighting is a little hit-or-miss, but does make things easier on the eyes. Equipped with navigation, the gigantic silver twisty knob control apparatus allows infinite zoom of the maps (not the best-rendered maps in the business, sadly) and moderately easy control of trip computer and music functions; without a nav system, you get another orange-tinted readout and an equally impressive stereo.
Seating aspires to BMW standards, including pull-out support under your thighs, with sporty bolstering and solid leather comfort.
In the end, quite a fine vehicle for my mystic ramblings, and a reasonably good choice for sport-minded drivers who want to provide much space to their passengers. The Dude approves.
