High Mileage Primeras

pclancy

Does anyone have an opinion on keeping a high mileage car or selling it...

Ive got a 99 Primera, coming up to 96,000 on the clock. No problems with it so far, gearbox feels a bit tight sometimes and the ride is a bit bouncy but no engine problems so far anyway. Im thinking of selling it now for hopefully €3500-4000 or spending a bit on getting it fully serviced, new tyres etc and replacing the shocks if they're the cause of the bouncieness. I know jap cars are reliable but getting into the 100K+ territory do ye reckon im going to have to start spending more and more on keeping her running or are nissans generally fine with high mileage?

Ger the man

pclancy wrote:

Does anyone have an opinion on keeping a high mileage car or selling it...

Ive got a 99 Primera, coming up to 96,000 on the clock. No problems with it so far, gearbox feels a bit tight sometimes and the ride is a bit bouncy but no engine problems so far anyway. Im thinking of selling it now for hopefully €3500-4000 or spending a bit on getting it fully serviced, new tyres etc and replacing the shocks if they're the cause of the bouncieness. I know jap cars are reliable but getting into the 100K+ territory do ye reckon im going to have to start spending more and more on keeping her running or are nissans generally fine with high mileage?

100k+ is nothing to a japanese engine, its only breaking in at that. My neighbour drives a 97 corolla with 145k on the clock. Just look after it and it will look after you.

barryfitz

Id say the engine is safe enough. I can vouch for the toyotas anyway. Mine's a 95 corolla with 172K on her. Nissans are generally relaible enough. If I was you id run her into the ground, And if I was looking for a primera I definetly wouldnt pay 3.5-4K for one with 96,000 miles on the clock

unkel

pclancy wrote:

Im thinking of selling it now for hopefully €3500-4000

Hate to break the bad news, but you won't get anywhere near that in a private sale. You might be better off spending a bit and keeping it for another few years or until it dies

Engine wise, you should be fine for some time to come. Having said that, I owned a newish one and reliability was crap. Had I known they were built in England and not in Japan, I would have bought another car

BrianD3

Ger the man wrote:

100k+ is nothing to a japanese engine

Correction, 100k is nothing to any modern engine that has been well looked after.

The engine and gearbox should be fine but there will inevitably be wear and tear on other components. Anyhere between about 80 and 200k you can expect to be replacing items such as suspension bushings, shocks, ball joints, track rods, brake discs, wheel bearings, clutch, if the car is uses a timing chain it may need some work at 150k miles or something. Water pump bearings may wear out, exhaust may rust, lambda sensors and catalytic converters won't last forever either

I have 145k on a Laguna owned from new and have just replaced rear axle mounting bushings and replaced track rods a while back, have also had a precautionary water pump change with the last timing belt and am due another one soon. That's pretty much it, still on original shocks, brakes discs and even brake pads, I consider this getting away lightly for the mileage

bazz26

As the owner of a high miler I would agree with the other posters here.

I have 143k miles on my car from new and from a monetory perspective it is worth very little. I contemplated parting with it last year and weighted up the pros and cons. At the end of the day the car is costing very little to run at the moment. The only things I had to spend money on were normal things like servicing, new brake pads and two new front shocks. Granted the more miles clocked up the increased possibility of spending money on replacing worn out parts.

The important thing with high mileage cars is how they were maintained, generally if they were looked after the engine, gearbox and body will last but there is an increased chance that most other components will simply wear out and need replacing.

As it stands my car has very little monetory value but to me it is cheaper to keep it than borrow silly money to replace it with a new car. Of course the day will come when it becomes uneconomical to keep the car but hopefully that day is a long way off.

Ger the man

BrianD3 wrote:

Correction, 100k is nothing to any modern engine that has been well looked after.

The engine and gearbox should be fine but there will inevitably be wear and tear on other components. Anyhere between about 80 and 200k you can expect to be replacing items such as suspension bushings, shocks, ball joints, track rods, brake discs, wheel bearings, clutch, if the car is uses a timing chain it may need some work at 150k miles or something. Water pump bearings may wear out, exhaust may rust, lambda sensors and catalytic converters won't last forever either

I have 145k on a Laguna owned from new and have just replaced rear axle mounting bushings and replaced track rods a while back, have also had a precautionary water pump change with the last timing belt and am due another one soon. That's pretty much it, still on original shocks, brakes discs and even brake pads, I consider this getting away lightly for the mileage

Exclude all rovers, fiats, alfa romeo's and the freelander too

yellow012

Ger the man wrote:

Exclude all rovers, fiats, alfa romeo's and the freelander too

Scuse me, we have a Punto Sporting with over 100k on it and the engine is as tight and strong as the day I got it. Its been properly looked after with services every 8k and timing belt changes at 40k but thats the only the money spent on it.

alias no.9

Ger the man wrote:

Exclude all rovers, fiats, alfa romeo's and the freelander too

Personal experience or hearsay? My 156 should be breaking the 96k mile barrier over the weekend and is running sweet as could be. With the exception of an incident with a kamakazi dog which resulted in the radiator needing to be replaced, I've spent a total of about €200 in addition to oil and filters over the year and a half and 20k miles I've owned it. That's pretty good going as far as I'm concerned. There's been plenty high mileage fiats in the family too. But then this must all just be pure fluke because somebodies cousins uncles mate dave heard from some guy down the pub...

Anyway, back on topic, the primera, watch out for the CV joints, the CV boots are prone to splitting and if dirt gets in you could knacker the joints pretty quickly. Other than that the bushings on the gear linkage can wear resulting in a sloppy gearchange but the gearboxes themselves are generally strong. The timing chain eliminates any woes about timing belts but keep the oil changes regular to keep the chain in good nick because they can snap if they're neglected, that's assuming it's a petrol, if it's a diesel, it has a timing belt (two in fact, one driving the camshaft and one driving the injector pump) so make sure that's changed to schedule.

pclancy

Thanks for the advice guys. Yeah I was being overzealous with the 3-4K selling price I guess. Its the P11 so its the 2nd last model which I think looks great and theres no problems with the body or interior. Its a 1.6 petrol and it was just serviced before I got it this time last year and ive only done about 8K so a good service will do her for the NCT hopefully. I'll hold on to it for the next few years anyway, its comfy and pokey enough for me so feck it!

alias no.9 wrote:

Anyway, back on topic, the primera, watch out for the CV joints, the CV boots are prone to splitting and if dirt gets in you could knacker the joints pretty quickly. Other than that the bushings on the gear linkage can wear resulting in a sloppy gearchange but the gearboxes themselves are generally strong. The timing chain eliminates any woes about timing belts but keep the oil changes regular to keep the chain in good nick because they can snap if they're neglected, that's assuming it's a petrol, if it's a diesel, it has a timing belt (two in fact, one driving the camshaft and one driving the injector pump) so make sure that's changed to schedule.

Ive noticed tight cornering seems a bit unstable and it seems bouncy at certain speeds, probably shocks is it? May get the gearbox looked at as well. Cheers.

kluivert

pclancy wrote:

May get the gearbox looked at as well. Cheers.

Get the gearbx oil changed, i bet that will do the trick for you.

pclancy

Cool!