Picked up a rental 2011 Maxima this morning. Not too impressed. For what looks like a huge car on the outside, it has a fairly small feel inside. The altima feels much bigger for sure. The trunk is massive however, but the back seat seems to suffer because of it.

Typical Nissan "cheap feel" interior as usual. Annoyingly cheap looking sponge dash pad and gloss black, carbon look accents shouldn't be on the flagship, but the leather seems of very high quality. The climate controls are terrible, but I'm thinking they tried to keep them simple for ladies and cotton tops.

Cvt tranny is very smooth and quick, but of course lacks feel like any other cvt. No steering wheel shifter paddles for manual mode seems odd too, since every other car has them.

With 2100kms on it and no damage to any wheel, it vibrates noticeably at 120kph. The vacant passenger seat shakes like a middle aged teen wolf! Road noise is not bad, but I expected better from what look like all season friendly tires.

Power seems good and the onboard Eco computer tells me I'm hovering around 8L/100kms city/hwy with cruising at 130kph.

Don't hate it for sure, but I actually prefer my 2004 G sedan. And I'm hating my car lately...

 

Fail.... The Maxima is huge. CVT's with paddle shifters is redundant because it's a transmission that doesn't shift! I feel that the material in the Nissan are on par if not the same that is in our Infinitis..... And the vibrations..., it's a rental....

 

im not a CVT fan and the plastics you notice are by far junk. For some reason I do love the Altima interior better than the new Maxima.

For the price you can get a Maxima SV w/ tech/cold weather/convenience pkg might as well get the G37

 

I recently had one as a loaner. It had 11k km on it. It was maybe an entry level version with a premium pkg added for BT and sunroof.
Any quick maneuvering made it feel as though you where riding a small water craft on a windy day. It has a very lose suspension which is great if you like that sort of thing.
I agree with guys about the CVT...boring. A person could fall asleep driving these things around.
To be fair, the sport tuned version of the Maxima is much much better. I've driven my neighbour's 2010 and it is night and day when compared to the loaner I had.
His Maxima has tuned suspension, 19's and maybe some other stuff too BUT it still has that CVT.
Although it mimics a lot of the 2nd gen G's interior styling, you are correct in that the materials and the material combination leaves a lot to be desired.
When speaking about it recently with a Nissan salesman in Guelph, he said they can't sell them. Everybody is just opting up for the G or the Altima.

 

Quoting Nissan.com Interior Capacities:
2011 Nissan Altima: Interior passenger volume - L (cu. ft.) 2852 (100.7)
2011 Nissan Maxima: Interior passenger volume - L (cu. ft.) 2713 (95.8)

The CVT has a manual 5 speed mode. Buttons on the wheel would cost pennies to include and make people sorry they bought autos feel like race car drivers.

Unfortunately our G interiors fall well into the Nissan Cheapo Interior, except our dash pad material is a bit better. Everything is safety now, so i imagine its a low reflection concern. A base model VW golf has a far far better quality interior.

 

I don't think the 2nd Gen G interior is cheap by any means when you compare it to any domestic, I can't believe BMW is considered to have good quality Interiors.....well maybe good quality but very boring in most of their cars, Audi and VW have very good quality interiors the problem with both companies is the functions break down sooner than the average car I know because I along with 5 other friends had model Year 2000' + Golfs and Jetta's. For price point the G interior is not great but pretty damn good IMO.

 

^ Yes, my wife had a loaded 03 Jetta Wagon TDI and the interior was nice but not as nice as a 2nd gen G. Maybe a 1st gen though, IDK.

 

True, second gen is a definite improvement. My biggest issue with nissan and most japanese interiors is the creaky buttons when depressed, hard, brittle plastic inserts and hard plastic knee boards. I'll aggree with BMWs boring interiors, but they are solid and clean. No silver paint rubbing off on door pulls and creaky plastic.

And lets be serious, nobody should be comparing anything on an Infiniti to a domestic car, let alone Interior quality. Saying the Infiniti Interior isnt cheap compared to domestics isn't doing any justice to Infiniti at all. Domestic everything is ****. Save the odd Cadillac and maybe the new Grand Cherokee interior, domestic interiors are terrible.

 

I drove a new Altima rental with CVT back in March on a trip to Banff. It felt very good to be back in my 03 G35 afterwards!