by "awmaster10" (awmaster10)
Published 01/03/2017 at 15:35
by "awmaster10" (awmaster10)
Published 01/03/2017 at 15:35
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STARS: 1
Ive thought about it a lot, and I think I can pinpoint exactly where Nissan (and later Infiniti) lost its direction completely, and became the CVT loving 3rd rate Japanese econobox manufacturer that they are today.
It was around the time when the Maxima went from this:
To this
And the Pathfinder went from this:
To this, although the current gen is way worse.
Dont even get me started on what they pulled on our friends in Japan
Even worse though is how their interior quality has gotten SO bad when it used to be extremely solid for the price.
yuck
At least Infinti stayed pretty good for a while, but eventually just became a ricer breeding ground
Ill probably just buy a first gen g35 sedan for like $6k and shut up about it, but it still make me sad that Nissan makes like 5 CUVs and a couple mediocre sedans and an uninspiring GTR.
"RT" (rt-p)
01/03/2017 at 15:55, STARS: 1
Hmm, I’d say Nissan started innovating in the late 60s, stagnated a bit after the later stages of the fuel crisis but they really got to their best in the early 90s.
From there it was sort of a slippery slope downhill. First they downgraded the suspension of the mid 90s Maxima, then their sports cars were discontinued and Renault got hold of them. You knew Nissan was in trouble when they made this interior:
I’d say they showed signs of improving in the late 2000s, but now have fallen into the ‘overstyled bland cars’ trap which most Japanese brands have at the moment. It was more of a decline than a ‘moment they went to shit’ for me.
They’ll get back at it eventually.
"crowmolly" (crowmolly)
01/03/2017 at 16:10, STARS: 1
Wow. That center stack is crazy.
“See that water cooler? REPLACE THE JUG WITH BUTTONS AND A SHIFTER”
"Kanaric" (Kanaric1)
01/03/2017 at 16:20, STARS: 2
I am a huge Nissan fan and have done a lot of thought of when Nissan turned to shit. I have kind of a multi point take on it:
1. Renault buying them:
Renault saved the company pretty much but they completely changed Nissan’s character to be terribly bland and bizarre. Nissan always made some weird looking cars, like the Pulsar GTIR, but if if they did they had serious performance cred. In the 90s they would have Nismoed the Sentra (they had the SE-R) or a versa equivalent. Now they do that with a Juke. Aside this Renault makes a lot of great hot hatches, none of them are on Nissans book. It’s like Renault is purposfully keeping Nissan down on that end for their main marques benefit like what GM would do.
2. Bubble burst:
The bubble affected a lot of Japanese companies. Nissan was heavily crippled by it. Like the rest they stopped selling their serious performance hardware here around 1996 and in Japan in 2002 and went for building cheap cars like the 350Z (cheap vs the 300zx). All japanese companies are a shadow of their former selves after the 2002 date in JDM land. However Mazda and Subaru worked around it with Subaru expanding in popularity (in the US) during this time. So it just shows that Nissan failed to adapt.
3. Failure to develop their vehicles:
The 370Z is basically on an enhanced 350Z chassis which started to be sold in 2002. It’s very long in the tooth, doesn’t have direct injection or anything like that, always had severe heating problems to the point where it was savaged in reviews for it (and car and driver wrecked one due to it), etc. People who buy a 370Z and are into performance soon find this out and move on to other cars. It’s another contributing factor to their losing their brand image. All their cars suffer from issues, they are like the new Mitsubishi.
edit: As far and Japan and the 2002 thing, think of a JDM car you would import past 2002. Only cars they made that were seriously desirable then are supercars (non-Skyline GTR) or STI/EVO. In Japan they had some MINOR continuation of like the X chassis (for Toyota) for example but still the great car there (X100 Chaser) was made in the 90s. You have a FEW things like the Nismo 380RS (350Z with 3.8l engine) of course but they are rare.
"sdwarf36" (sdwarf36)
01/03/2017 at 23:38, STARS: 1
Ok-I’ll start out with saying I’m old.
I was dyed in the wool Datsun man. I had at least one of every model from 69 to 80. (All at least 10 years by the time I got them. All cheap in various stages of their lives.) I think things started downhill about ‘84. The had lost brand ID by switching names to Nissan in 79. The bloat (and emission regs) of the eighties had taken the fun out of all cars. The Z was a fat turd by then. Then they just gave up on rear wheel drive. I tried to survive the first gen Sentras of the mid 80's(I had 3) but by then they were just shitboxes. No better or worse than anything else. To the point they needed the buy out. By the time they started to turn a profit again, They had no brand ID-no excitement-they were no longer in the top 3 imports-hell they were barely inside the top 10.
I don’t follow them that close anymore-but you’d have a hard time convincing me that anything they do now is a class leader. Sigh.