buying advice on nissan altima coupe

[Sa3edster]

Greetings Nico Club!

I've just joined the forum as I have developed a great interest in buying a Nissan Altima !

So here's the deal, my friend and I regularly go out to race, he owns a 2000 Cl 500 and i drive a 2001 S55 and we have both made the decision to buy new cars as the maintenece for these has been a real pain.

He has decided to go for a 2009 g35s coupe and I have come accross a 2008 3.5 cvt altima coupe with 120,000 km's on the tacho.

Now i have gone with the altima since its cheaper and ill have some money left over to mod it a little bit.

What i would like to know is:
A: Generaly, I'd like to know if with a few mods will i be able to keep up with him with the right mods?
And

B: what are some of the common problems in a used altima with altimas upward of 100,000 km's (60,000 miles) ?
I have heard alot of people conplain about the cvt and something about a dashboard melting? Which is worrying since i live in a country where the summers bring temparatures of 40-50 degrees. Any insight and help on the matter , or links to existing threads that give me this info would be very helpful!

Thank you in advance.

ps: i would love nothing more than to get a manual but sadly they are very rare if not non existent in this region

[seldomseen]

If you're interested in "racing" an Altima coupe....then you should look for an '08 -'12 V6 that has the manual transmission. The CVT isn't ideal for racing....even though it's pretty fast off the nice.

[Sa3edster]

@seldomseen

I am looking at the 3.5 v6 but the thing is i cant seem to find a manual in the market. So even the semi auto of the cvt is no good then? Is it the fact that its gonna suffer from the driving style or simply that it cant perform?

[seldomseen]

@seldomseen

I am looking at the 3.5 v6 but the thing is i cant seem to find a manual in the market. So even the semi auto of the cvt is no good then? Is it the fact that its gonna suffer from the driving style or simply that it cant perform?

Expand your search radius...the manual coupes are out there! If your plan is the do a lot of 1/4 mile runs or something along of lines of Time Attacks. You will most likely cause the CVT to go into "safe mode" and/or cause the CVT programming to go out of wack because of how you'd be "pushing" the CVT. As solid and reliable as the CVT is....it's just not the right type of transmission for what you intend on driving the coupe. You definitely want to find a 6spd coupe if you intend on taking the car to the car along or if you intend on street racing the car frequently.

If you just intend on doing a strong pulls from time to time, the CVT will be more than suffice. However, continual hard pulls will negatively affect the CVT as it's a transmission that designed to achieve full efficiency and not performance.

[Sa3edster]

@seldomseen

I am looking at the 3.5 v6 but the thing is i cant seem to find a manual in the market. So even the semi auto of the cvt is no good then? Is it the fact that its gonna suffer from the driving style or simply that it cant perform?

Expand your search radius...the manual coupes are out there! If your plan is the do a lot of 1/4 mile runs or something along of lines of Time Attacks. You will most likely cause the CVT to go into "safe mode" and/or cause the CVT programming to go out of wack because of how you'd be "pushing" the CVT. As solid and reliable as the CVT is....it's just not the right type of transmission for what you intend on driving the coupe. You definitely want to find a 6spd coupe if you intend on taking the car to the car along or if you intend on street racing the car frequently.

If you just intend on doing a strong pulls from time to time, the CVT will be more than suffice. However, continual hard pulls will negatively affect the CVT as it's a transmission that designed to achieve full efficiency and not performance.

Alright sounds good... I am lookig at where i can get 6speeds from right now , though it seems i'd have to ship from the US or japan, which will make me go slightly over-budget.

How about doing mild mods with a cvt car, like the basic chip tune, remap etc, would it be able to handle that, cause ive hear about alot of automaric gears going whack and not being able to handle the extra pressure of a tune .

[seldomseen]

What country are you in?