If you're looking for a review on any of the technical information on this car, I have to disappoint you. I know about as much about the technical bits of this car as I do about the Hubbel Telescope .. on a clear night I might remember where it stands.

But I did drag this little car through the ultimate road test - from Georgia to California in 3 days, with everything a person needs to relocate stuffed into every free corner of the little thing, so I'll write about that.

The Engine

Hm. Let me go check .... yep, it's got one. It's in the front.

Oh, come on ... I told you I know nothing about that. I'm sure the manufacturer's product page will tell you all about the contents of the wasted trunk space in the front ...

Space

I decided to relocate from Georgia to California and don't know when any of my stuff could be shipped, so I had to pack everything I deemed necessary for survival, which of course means, clothes, more clothes, shoes, make-up, a few books, computer, more clothes ... oh, okay, there was a little bit of paperwork in there, too.

Anyway, I had this thing packed like a can of Spam. After clearing the car out completely, I opened the trunk and took a measuring look .... hmmmm.... *sigh* .... walk away, bang my head against a tree a few times for having bought this "compact" little thing, go back to trunk. I soon discovered, though, that the trunk space wasn't quite as bad as it looked. I stuffed 4 huge travel bags in there and had room left to stuff little things here and there.

If you want to lug around something long, you can tilt down the back seat and find an opening connecting to the trunk. However, that opening is half the size of the whole trunk width. But really, I don’t commonly carry surf boards or 2 by 4’s, so I don’t need that feature anyway.

Inside, the back seat served to store a 17" monitor, an Army duffle bag and some other stuff, all of this covered with a full size blanket to keep the viewing thieve audience out. Had I not been taught by previous experience to not pack a car sky high so I can still see out of the rear window, I could have put more in there. The computer itself was stored behind the passenger seat, nicely forced into place by pushing the seat all the way back to trap the comp between front and back seat.

That still didn't leave an enormous amount of room in the front of the passenger seat, so if you got passengers on the back seat, you better have someone with short legs in the front.

The good thing about the Nissan Sentra was that even though it was stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey, it did not drive low. From the outside, the car did not seem to have any extra weight in it.

Driving the Can of Spam

One problem with the Nissan Sentra - which it has whether you load it up or leave it extra empty by running after it instead of driving - the thing accelerates like a turtle. This may be a general Nissan problem, because a coworker of mine who has a newer model complained about the same problem.

Since very few people buy a Nissan Sentra to race Camaros with it, that's not a big problem you'd think; well, I'm afraid it is, though, when you need to get onto the Interstate and there's a lot of traffic zapping by. While you may be perfectly capable of shooting the gaps between those cars, your Nissan may not, so unless you go out on the interstate without the car, you could have a hard time getting on.

It's also an additional risk when you pass other cars or even just pull out of a driveway. Of course you can adjust for that problem by calculating the extra time you'll need, and you eventually get used to it, but drivers who are concerned about safety, especially for their kids, should probably consider this twice.

Speaking of kids ... this may be a cute little car for the really little ones, peacefully strapped into the back of it, but beware ... once they can start throwing those Cheerios, you're in for a treat.

This car is hard to clean on the inside. If you smoke, that's extra fun. Before heading off, I wanted the car clean and I spent quite a while with that task. The seats don't go back and forth far enough to really get underneath them with a vacuum cleaner hose unless you're a contortionist, and there are too many little corners and crevices that collect dust and dirt that are too small or badly placed to get a vacuum cleaner in there, too.

Hours of fun with a Q-tip await you if you really want to get the dirt out of every crevice in this vehicle. The seat material has a tendency to hold on to everything with the quality of Velcro. At the time of my trip, I hadn’t had the dog in the car for 5 months, but I still spent 3 rounds trying to get all the dog hair from the seats to get rid of that shag rug look they had acquired.

As far as driving, I was pleasantly surprised. Even with the equivalent of a small elephant in my car, I managed to go up to 95 mph on the interstate. Of course, that was on flat areas, but I also never accelerated over 100 mph yet even with the car empty, so it didn't seem much different. Up the hills, however, the car did chug along like it had some asthma attack, and it took forever to accelerate. I had trucks passing me left and right going uphill because it took so long to get speed, which didn't go much over 65 uphill.

The problem was slowing down. The break pedal rattles badly enough on any break, but going downhill at 90 mph, hitting the breaks, I felt like my kneecap was about to be flung out of my leg at any time. It also didn't make for a feeling of trust between me and my breaks.

And here a note of appreciation to the New Mexico Highway Patrol ... okay, he didn't have much of a sense of humor, but at least he only wrote me a warning..... Luckily he only pulled me out doing 85; I doubt he would have appreciated my attempts of testing the max speed of my car for a review ....

Gas Usage

I never let the tank go completely empty, of course, but being almost on Empty and adding 10 gallons, I'm guessing I got about a 12 gallon tank. As mentioned, with a serious load of weight added to the car, I did get about 400 miles out of one tank of gas. About 50 of those were city miles, the rest interstate, going anywhere from 65 to 95.

Just some Personal Gripe

In 1999, I lost a hub cap. Trying to replace that, I called the local Nissan dealer to ask how much a single hub cap would be. Being a 96 model, there weren't too many corpses of this car type lounging about the junk yards. I was told that one hub cap is about 50 dollars. When I heard that, I felt a bit ripped off.

Had I known that when buying the car, I would have told the dealer to take off those glorified candy dishes and knock $200 off the sales price instead, especially since I can get a whole set for my 13" tires at Wal-Mart for 20 bucks; only difference would be those don't have "Nissan" stamped on them, but frankly, after 2 years, I know the name of my car and no longer need to look it up on the side of the wheel.

Any work was completely overpriced at the Nissan dealer; tune-ups costing about 3 times as much as they would anyplace else. I guess that might be the same with all dealers, but since this is my first fairly new car, I was quite surprised by this.

I also recently managed to whack off my right side mirror. Don’t ask, I won’t tell. The electronic mirror with labor would come up to about $250 to replace. Maybe I’ll strap a make-up mirror onto the car if anybody feels like I really have to have one, but unless that time comes, I’ll do with one side mirror.

Okay, this might not be a lot, I don’t have much to compare to, but for those who do, it might give an impression of the general cost of parts.

Dings and Scratches

Okay, so I run into trash cans and garage doors a lot .... And twice now I've been bumped in the front by other cars; once, a van ahead of me when standing at an exit, suddenly decided to back up and ram straight into my car; the other time, some idiot decided to try to push my parked car out of the way with his truck. Long story ....

Knowing that a friend of mine ended up spending some $2000 for replacing the deployed air bags and broken dash after just bumping into a car at about 20mph during stop and go traffic, I was glad that the Nissan wasn't that overly sensitive. Of course that leaves the question of how much it does take to deploy those air bags.

However, not once has this car gotten any dents from any of these confrontations. The most that happened was a tiny piece of paint chipping on the front when crunched by the truck, and a few scratches from rubbing along the garage door frame.

Now, I have to concede, though, that even my little Nissan has a point where it huffs and says “that’s about all I’ll take.” That point came when I managed to tear up the entire side of another car with the right front of my car.

However, while the other car looked like a can of tuna after the can opener went at it, my Nissan merely looks like a 5-year-old who scraped their knee on the playground. The bumper was neither dented nor bent and all it would take to repair the damage is some paint on the corner of the bumper and a new headlight.

And whoever claimed this car to be "platinum" need their eyes checked. It's plain silver, for heaven's sake.

SMALL STUFF

That is one lousy cup holder they got there. It’s right in front of the radio, so you keep moving your drinks around to get to the radio. Going down a notch, we have the cigarette lighter, or lack thereof. Apparently, that is considered an “extra” nowadays.

The worst thing is the space below the cup holder. There are little crevices in that area and every time that cup of coffee sloshes about and drips onto the area below, you have a heck of a time trying to clean that.

I usually drive home my employees if I work until midnight. Several of them have expressed that my car is the only one where they accidentally lock themselves in when they try to open the window. Ah well .. I value the child lock on my side where I can lock up all unsuspecting folk… errr.. never mind that.


BUT HERE'S THE BUMMER

One day, I get mail from Nissan ... “oooohhh.. they write me!”

Well, that happiness didn't last long. It wasn't a greeting card, but a recall notice for this vehicle. When used in areas where (quoted parts copied from recall notice)"significant amounts of salt" are used on the road, the front coil springs of this vehicle "may break as a result of corrosion ... a broken spring could puncture a tire and result in loss of control of the vehicle, which could cause a crash."

I haven't spent any time in any of the 24 states mentioned as high risk, but I figured after said trip, I could as well have the springs replaced anyhow. What the heck, it's free new parts, and anybody who wants to charge me 50 bucks for a hub cap deserves to do any repairs I can get for free, whether I need them or not.

Now this is just a suspicion of mine, but it seems there's a bit more than this one thing wrong with the car. When I called the Nissan dealer, I asked them about the recall specifically for the 1996 Nissan Sentra and was asked which recall notice I had.

When I mentioned the springs, they told me I had to bring the notice in so they could see exactly which recall notice it was. I really would expect that a recall notice is something rare enough that the dealer knows what I talk about when giving him the model, and that they take the call with a bit more than the bored "yeah, we know" attitude than they did.

I also found that the Nissan dealer spent a lot of effort trying to talk me out of my plans to have these springs replaced. From

“well, are you SURE you’re going to one of these states?”

(of course. As sure as I am that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. What do you care, pal?)

to:

“Well, it will take us at LEAST 2 weeks to even GET that part.”

(yeah, but I bet you got a 50-dollar candy dish handy)

Overall, I don't consider this a bad car, but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody with children or living in the salt-riddled plains of the U.S. Overall, though, it’s a good car, though, and hasn’t turned into a major expense problem yet.

In the 3 years I’ve owned it and, admittedly, have not driven it very kindly, I only needed the replacement of one belt and the usual breaks and tires replaced, but no major repairs.

Amount Paid (US$): $12.000
Model Year: 1996
Model and Options: Automatic