Overview & Reviews

Nissan was born in Japan, and like other marques from its homeland, the brand is known for crafting vehicles that place an emphasis on quality and reliability. The company's roster of products is broad, and includes sporty coupes, family sedans, minivans, trucks and SUVs.

The automaker got its start in 1933 as the Jidosha Seico Co., Ltd. The following year, this outfit merged with another Japanese manufacturer, and the new company was christened Nissan Motor Company, Ltd. Nissan initially marketed its vehicles under the Datsun brand, with the first Datsuns being built in 1934. Postwar, the brand made its presence felt worldwide, building a partnership with the U.K.-based Austin Motor Co. and establishing a presence in the United States. The first Datsuns hit American shores in 1958. Vehicles like the Datsun 1000 were based on Austin platforms.

The '60s witnessed Nissan's merger with Prince Motor Company, a union that helped the Asian manufacturer create more luxury-focused vehicles. In the U.S. it began offering its first vehicle styled for the U.S. market, the Datsun 510 sedan. By the end of the decade, Datsun had exported more than 1 million vehicles. Datsun rose to prominence in the 1970s on the popularity of its 240Z sports car. Powered by an inline six-cylinder engine, the car was coveted for its blend of style, performance and affordability. By the time the '70s drew to a close, the automaker's cumulative vehicle exports had surpassed the 10 million mark.

In 1981, Nissan shelved the Datsun name and began selling vehicles worldwide under the Nissan moniker. The '80s also saw Nissan's launch of a tuning division called Nismo for the development of performance-oriented vehicles and accessories. Nissan also brought its production to American shores, with the construction of a Georgia-based plant.

The early '90s saw Nissan's fortunes rise in the U.S. thanks to fun-to-drive cars like the 300ZX, Maxima and Sentra. But this trend didn't last long and by the late '90s Nissan's offerings consisted of anonymous vehicles. The company's future was uncertain.

After the turn of the new century Nissan bounced back, helped by a 1999 alliance with Renault that boosted the company's finances. Its redesigned Sentra and Altima boosted sales and consumer interest, as did new models like the 350Z sports car, Armada SUV and Titan pickup. Today the manufacturer is known for offering a wide range of well-regarded vehicles, including the popular Murano SUV, the incredible GT-R supercar and the all-electric Leaf.

User Reviews:

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  worst bumpers ever - 2005 Nissan Pathfinder
  By vadim - August 2 - 9:26 pm

  Cheap plastic inside and outside - everything inside breaks - plastic covers on the side of the seat broke, central storage bin in between passenger seat and driver’s seat also broke. But the worst things is the bumpers - for a car of this class - a big suv, these bumpers are very flimsy.. Minor things will cause them to break, crack, tea and lose paint. Horrible. Cd player broke - cds get stuck. Also the whole car makes noises - squeaking and rattling everywhere. Dealer said its normal and couldn’t fix it. Horrible gas mileage – 12 mpg city / 16 highway, made no difference if putting super, premium or regular gas.

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  Quality not there - 2005 Nissan Murano
  By Wildwest - August 2 - 3:43 pm

  Bought Murano after many GMs. Like looks and performance, at 34000 miles rear brakes, completely worn out, metal to metal, too small for vehicle. Gas filler neck very rusty, very early, poor galvanization. In 4th year,at 40000 miles, chrome on Grill peeled and muffler broke off (rusted off) at inlet pipe. $400. just for muffler, from dealer. Poor quality on Grill chrome and muffler. Bought wife used Toyota RAV4, absolutely no problems. Phoned Nissan about quality problems, they said out of warranty, too bad. I believe some of these problems are due to Cleveland winters,but other cars dont have these problems.

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  rattles that irritate everyone - 2004 Nissan Quest
  By hellsone - July 31 - 10:00 am

  Rattling sliding doors. Had it at the dealership 4 times and they cant fix them. Little squeeks inside the dash, cant find it. I solved the rattling doors myself by inserting black tubing inside the door rubbers. It made it more stable and the doors didnt rattle metal against metal anymore.

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  Air Conditioner - 2009 Nissan Murano
  By Kathy - July 25 - 1:45 pm

  My 2009 Murano has almost 75,000 mi on it (now 8 years old), and up to now, havent had much problem with it. My Air Conditioning Compressor just went out, and the dealer cost to replace it is over $1,200.00!! So far apparently, there is no recall on this.

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  will never buy another nissan! - 2005 Nissan Pathfinder
  By dustman98 - July 20 - 2:56 pm

  Bought my 05 pathfinder used in 2010 with 75K miles thinking I was getting a great used vehicle with excellent reliability. What ensued was a series of headaches that prompted me to trade it (at a loss) only 1.5 years later. I replaced the radiator only 8 months into ownership because it was leaking to prevent transmission problem that seemed prevalent among owners. Within 6 months, I noticed transmission making funny shifts and acting awkward. At the same time, CV joint deterioriated on front driveshaft (another common complaint) resulting in terrible roaring noise during high speed travel. Replaced both for $1300. Traded today to avoid problem..Get rid of as soon as possible!!

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  Last Nissan Ill Buy - 2001 Nissan Pathfinder
  By billbern - July 19 - 10:00 am

  Vehicle is fun to drive, ride is truck- like. Assembly was top-notch, but quality of parts is disappointing. Reliability is dismal, it has a great engine but everything else has been poor quality. Rear suspension problems and failures, electronics (six O2 sensors in 3 years, cd changer died 1 month out of warranty), brakes squeal, leather color flakes off, you name it. Vehicle spends as much time in the shop as it does on the road.

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  Unstable Rear-end at High Speeds - 2005 Nissan Altima
  By Scared - July 19 - 10:00 am

  Drove car on trip with 5 passengers and luggage. At 70 MPH plus back seat occupants had a dizzy feeling during lane changes and stated the rear-end is swaying. After trip, tried to miss object in the road at 70 MPH and ended up skidding sideways into center grass medium. Made same maneuver as vehicle in front of me which handled just fine. No injuries but a lot of damage. Nissan rep. inspected car and found no part failures. I told Nissan its a design problem and they sent me a mechanic. Edmunds.com (road tests) warns of the skittish problem and overboosted steering. I highly recommend careful review of these facts before purchase of this car.

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  Wonderful car... when it works - 2000 Nissan Maxima
  By Barticus - July 13 - 6:16 pm

  Bought the car 2 years old and have had a constant stream of problems. Over four years of ownership I have invested $3-4000 NOT including $3000 worth of tires and brakes, and I still have close to $2000 of repairs outstanding. Im never buying another Nissan. A list of things repaired include transmission, daytime running lights module, heater control electronics, air temp sensor, exhaust temp sensor .

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  Uncomfortable for long distances - 2016 Nissan Versa
  By Patrick J. - July 12 - 11:08 am

  My existing car finally bit the dust after putting 220,000 miles on her, a 2001 Suzuki Vitara small SUV. I ended up renting the Nissan Versa from Enterprise to get me around until I can buy something to replace my Vitara. My initial impressions of the Versa were positive, it looks nice outside and I have any easy time getting into and out of the car with plenty of headroom. I am not very tall at around 510", but I ran into 2 problems once I sat in the driver seat. First, the center console is very low and wide, it sits forward of the shifter and the width of it hits me in my lower-right leg. This is exacerbated by the front of the driver seat which slopes upwards very steeply. The pedals are so deep in the well that I have to move the seat so far forward that I end up "man-spreading" to fit properly resulting in the leg/console collision. It makes it extremely difficult to drive long distances. My left leg also rubs against another cupholder that Nissan put in the lower part of the left door. The location of it makes no sense, no person in their right mind would ever want to place a cup or bottle there. As far as performance goes, this thing would easily wipe the floor off my old Vitara, I have no idea why people call this thing slow. Without blinking I find myself doing 50MPH and have done 65MPH with ease. Performance is right where it should be considering the price. However, I find that there is no sensation of speed or acceleration when driving this car. It is very weird, I will start accelerating, blink my eyes and find I am doing 50MPH. Whether I floor the accelerator or lightly press it, the car just starts going 50MPH with no sensation of reaching that speed. It actually makes it very difficult to drive speed limits of 30-40MPH and I constantly find myself unintentionally speeding. It must be some drive-by-wire nonsense causing this. There is no road vibration coming through either the accelerator or brake which makes things more difficult. The brakes are too responsive as well, I find it difficult to slow down over a distance, they clearly designed it to brake on a dime for idiots that dont know how to drive safely. Other gripes I have include the dash lighting, it has ridiculously bright white LED lighting that causes glare inside the car. There is a knob that was stupidly placed in the center of the dash forcing you to reach through the steering wheel to get to it and it doesnt work like a normal knob. You have to press in, turn and hold the knob to the left or right to make it adjust. If you adjust all the way left or right it wraps back around and goes back to full brightness which makes it damn near impossible to set to the lowest setting. My Vitara has the dimmer located as a dial on the left side near where the side mirror controls are which is far easier to adjust while driving. Another gripe is the air controls do not let you select outside air vs inside, it only goes to outside air when you use the defroster. Lastly, there is no 3.5MM Line-In on the front of the radio, super lame. One plus is the trunk is huge with plenty of room to fit stuff, maybe not as deep as some people would like, I put my groceries in there last night and they stayed in place all the way home. Overall my feeling is that this is a very modern car that Nissan failed to test with people of various body sizes and lacks the connection to the road that the best drivers look for in a vehicle.

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  Problems! - 2008 Nissan Maxima
  By PJM - June 28 - 3:40 am

  I have had problems with this vehicle since the day we drove it home from the dealer. After 4 months of trying to deal with Nissan, we have yet to have anyone actually take responsibility to fix or replace this car. We have waited weeks for phone calls. We have a brand new car that we are afraid to drive and nobody seems to know how to fix it. Nissan is also ignoring the service dept at the dealership attempting to repair this car. Guess the next step is to hire a lawyer.