Long story short, I was looking for a 2wd 4cyl-16valve 5spd truck to commute with, so I bought a 1998 Nissan Frontier. I am extremely unhappy with my purchase. The only redeeming quality the vehicle has is that it's getting me about 25.4 miles per gallon. I can say this with confidence since I've been using my phone's GPS as a speedometer/odometer due to Nissan's reluctance to take responsibility for their notoriously faulty instrument clusters in 98-99 Frontiers. Serves me right for thinking other manufacturers would be as proactive about their faults as Toyota. And for not doing my homework

NEVER AGAIN.

So who else learned this lesson the hard way

 

My mother in law bought a maxima brand new and it has been nothing but problematic!

 

The wife's vehicle is a GMC Yukon. While it's pretty good for a family mover, I absolutely hate wrenching on it. Most fasteners are metric, but when you're elbows deep in it, you'll discover 'that one' that's 7/16" or 3/8".

Last weekend was MOST unpleasant as I had to replace a u-joint. Simple process right? drive off the retainer clips hammer on one side, flip repeat and done; we've all done it. Not so for this beast; GM at some point decided metal clips were inadequate and designed a plastic injection channel into the driveshaft ears and u-joint cups. I did figure out early on that I needed to heat up the ears until the plastic ran out, but after the plastic quit running, I still spent about an hour beating on the thing with a 10 lb sledge.

I do have her convinced that when the kids are grown (at least a couple of them anyway) it will be time for a tacoma.