Switched my Prius Prime to Nissan Sentra... and was pleasantly surprised

Nissan is an expert at “builds to a price”
They failed at improving batteries so they removed cost in the ways you noted.

Nissan is amazing when you understand they can build profitable $5000 MSRP cars overseas just as they can build $12,000 profitable cars here, bad side effects come from the price but still interesting they can do it.

Something worth noting is most cars of a particular age had identical camera, infotainment and usability issues
The 1st and 2nd Gen cellular infotainment setups with Bluetooth were abysmal across the industry

So bad that many modern cars just go Apple or Android and lack full featured systems, your phone is the system and the screen is just for viewing its content, which is sad, I like a real nav

 

Perhaps they lost money on every sale and found reasons to keep the car from selling too well.

I feel like virtually every car on the market gets complaints like that for their intro, and then they get better for the second model year or in some cases it takes until a bigger refresh. But I don't think Nissan had much motivation to fix the little things on that car, since fixing things wasn't going to improve the bottom line.

In the 1960s, VW proved that automotive product quality can be completely divorced from cost. It's still true today, though it is still a difficult goal left unmet by many. We just have more and more interesting reasons now.

 

I don't care about brand other than what it signifies in terms of quality. Some manufacturers are less concerned about quality than others. When VWs were made in Germany they were excellent cars. I had an '86 Jetta that lasted over 200,000 miles without an issue - like my Toyotas today. When VW started manufacturing for the US in Mexico their cars become so bad as to be almost undriveable. I had a 2000 Jetta that had the entire instrument cluster fail at 400 miles. The heater core failed at 5,000 miles. It drank oil like a dehydrated marathon runner. The manual crank windows stopped working at around 10,000 miles. And as a bonus, the HVAC controls melted (as in the plastic melted and ran down the dash) at around 20,000 miles. I'll just chalk up the time the engine shut down on the freeway at 70 mph to a fluke. That car was what drove me to try Toyota.

Once I land on a brand that produces reliable products I'm not inclined to switch until betrayed or the price becomes wildly out of sync with the market in general. It's not out of any sense of loyalty, it's just that it's less of a gamble.

 

For me it's a function of the length of time and the repairs. In my driving experience (including immediate family) I have:

• 1977 Dodge Aspen
• 1975 VW Beetle
• 1985 Ford Mustang
• 1986 VW Jetta
• 1989 VW Fox
• 1993 VW Jetta
• 1995 VW Jetta
• 2000 VW Jetta
• 2004 Toyota Corolla
• 2007 Toyota Camry SE
• 2010 Honda Accord
• 2010 Honda Civic
• 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in
• 2012 Toyota Prius c
• 2018 Prius Prime
• 2020 Nissan Leaf
• 2021 Prius Prime

There is only one make of car in that list that NEVER needed a repair as long as I owned them: Toyota. Every single one of them. All other makes required untimely repairs at some point. The 1986 VW Jetta didn't, but the other VWs more than made up for that anomaly.

 

Nope...haven't forgotten. I can get 36 MPG on the highway in my humongous 2012 Hyundai Sonata. The engine on the Sonata is paired nicely with the vehicle...it just purrs along on the highway without upshifting....even up moderate hills.

Wife's car is a 2013 Hyundai Elantra GT ( the hatchback version )...and only gets about 33 MPG on the highway...but is a smaller car. However, the engine on the GT seems underpowered...it always upshifts up the same hills.

Point is that a nicely paired engine in an ICE vehicle can result in some pretty great MPG..all things considered. The Hyundai's have been great as far as repairs as well...NO repairs needed on then so far other than scheduled maintenance items.

Disclaimer : These vehicles were purchased just before we 'discovered' hybrids. We purchased our first Prius ( a 2010 liftback ) as a car for the high school aged kids to drive. I now three hybrids later, I drive my Prius V wagon more than my Sonata. Daughter currently has a Prius C.

 

I think because it's more complicated than just cost. Two people could own the same year, make, and model and have totally different experiences. One guy might never do the scheduled maintenance or take any pains to treat the car well. He might drive it 50,000 miles a year doing pizza deliveries. The other guy might religiously keep the car maintained and keep it clean and drive it 5,000 miles a year. If the first guy reported that his car was terrible because of all the repair bills after 2 years it would have almost no relevance to me. Since I don't know all that information I have to generally discard other people's experiences unless I know them personally and how they treat their vehicles, as do most people I expect.

 

I'm with you there. I'd be happy with:

1. am/fm radio
2. hand-crank windows
3. manual hvac controls that are intuitive and easily adjustable without taking your eyes off the road
4. conventional ignition key, no security chip
5. spare tire

 

I was hoping the ford Maverick would come trimmed this way long box bench seat standard cab

 

It’s funny you mention this, as we have experienced most of these with our 2016. Here is my list:

• Misaligned body panels, minor seat upholstery issues, window trim alignment (all on delivery)
• Intermittent HVAC heating doesn’t work (even when brand new, but not easy to replicate). It happened to me again just on Friday, 25 mins of driving and never got heat… worked fine on Saturday.
• Agreed that backup camera quality is poor, even with the 360 camera (which makes the backup cam very small)
• Can’t adjust/turn down the radio when the backup cam is on… lol. So dumb.
• I never experienced the not muting on call or the radio coming on at start… will keep an eye out for this.
  
• I did notice the Bluetooth connectivity for audio streaming was very poor - had to turn the radio on and off a few time to get it to connect to my iPhone; we finally reported it to Nissan a few months ago when in for a recall and they updated the system software and it has been much better. So that is a bit on us for not asking earlier (we were 2 versions behind…)
• Re: battery capacity, we have lost 2 of 12 capacity bars with the 30Kw pack (which is ‘normal’ for the age) with 2 years and 90k KM remaining on our battery warranty. Decent chance we will lose 2 more bars and get a free battery by then, IMO.

The car has been mostly maintenance-free as advertised, however we have had a couple non-standard repairs done:

• When the car was about a year old, the heated seats stopped working - it kept blowing the fuse. After burning 3 or 4 fuses, took it in and there was some kind of short between the weight sensor and seat heater, so they replaced the seat heater and problem was solved.
• Also had frequent issues with the (one and only?) 12v outlet when the car was new. It was replaced. (Kinda ironic with an EV…)
• Had issues with the brakes earlier this year, had rear right brake seizing and heating up to the point we could smell it. Reported this and had a full brake job done, despite the car only having 70k KM in 5 years, which is very early compare to Prius. After brake job, still had issues with rear heating up. I’m talking a casual 5-min residential drive with light braking and the RR disc would get up ~90C while the RL disc would remain about 25C using a laser heat gun. Took Nissan 2 more visits to realize there was a problem… turned out the “emergency brake cable” was seized and causing this issue (!). They tried to charge us another $500 (on top of the full brake we just had, for this reason), and I told them where to go. They called Nissan and to their credit actually did it at NO CHARGE (!) even though we were well out of warranty, since this is something which is “not supposed to fail” - and sounds like they had never replace one. Lucky us. Anyway, had to wait almost 3 weeks for the part and scheduling, but it got done for free and has been fine since. Thanks Nissan!

Oh, and we have had marketing mailers offering free oil changes… and it was addressed to us by name and included our model in the letter. We have also had the service department (!) ask if we are due for an oil change. Lol. Nothing says confidence like…. We haven’t been so impressed with the service dept.

Anyway, bottom line is the there has been a clear “quality” difference between the Leaf and Prius, but all things said it is still a nice car and my wife still loves her car (and hates when I compare them).

Sorry for the long post and going a bit OT, but the comment on Leaf quality sort of piqued my interest so I thought I would share our similar experience.

 

I have been buying and driving cars since the 1950's and the worst ones have been German and English. Had a 1991 MB 300CE and a Jaguar XJ12L both of which were unreliable. Bought my first new Toyota, a Celica GT in 1979; then a cressida and a supra new in 1983, followed by a new cressida in 1989 and a Tacoma in 1999 and a Lexus ES300 in 2000. The Tacoma was trouble free when I sold it two years ago and replaced it with a 2002 4Runner as I thought I needed 4WD and an automatic transmission. We still have the Lexus which was also trouble free. So we became a Toyota family. The PP got me hooked on driving an EV and the 4Runner on a 4WD SUV, so when the RAV4Prime came out I tried to buy one. No luck in this part of the country. Toyota is kind of ambiguous as to when their EV will be available for sale. So our next car will probably not be a Toyota. I am seriously considering either a Hyundai or Kia as our next EV and possibly the new Ford Maverick hybrid to replace the 4Runner. Might have to wait a year or so until it becomes more of a buyer's market for vehicles, though.

 

Isn't that the truth. I'm trying to hold on with our current vehicles until the market turns. I hate getting ripped off by the stealerships. I've seen dealerships even hiking up the prices on the Maverick....which is supposed to be an affordable vehicle. Pretty disgusting.

 

You could always report them to Ford if you want. I’ve read multiple stories that say Ford plans to punish dealers for this behaviour. Might be Canada only, though.

 

Just read on my newsfeed that Ford has taken orders for all the Mavericks they can produce for 2022. They are suggesting you wait 'til later in the year and order the 2023 model.

 

This may be so, but the two Prius cars I've had, including my current plug-in, are usually off by 2 to 5 mpg in their readings. I suspect all cars that give out an mpg reading stretch it.