My wife and are looking at a second family car. We found a 04 Quest in super good shape for a really good price. It has a VQ with 115k miles. A buddy of mine (whos also a nico member) works at a Nissan dealer and said theyre pretty much crap. I would like to have some other opinions from people with experience.
Thanks in advance

I helped a friend look for a late model used minivan about 10 yrs ago. The 2004 Quest was briefly on her list. Concern about reliability was one of reasons she decided against it. And that was when they were much newer. 2004 was the first year of a major Quest redesign. It was bigger, more comfortable, nicer looking than its previous generation, and it drove well too. BUT, for the first 3 model years 2004-2006 of that gen, I must agree with your friend. Quests had a poor reliability reputation, especially when compared to its Japanese competition. It was more on par with Chrysler minivans (that's not a good thing). I believe later Quests (after 2006) got a little bit better in terms of reliability. Fast forward a decade and I doubt those specific model years suddenly got better with age. Back in '04, there were 2 minivans that seemed a cut above the rest especially when it came to reliability. The Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey. She ended up buying a used Odyssey and had a drama free experience. I'm not saying the Quest you're looking at is necessarily cr@p. It might end up being fine assuming it was both maintained and treated well throughout its life. But when considering a 13 year old car for DD use without a maintenance history, (I'm guessing it's not an original owner selling it) I see a bigger risk with that era Quest than with similar vintage Sienna or Odyssey despite the Quest's more attractive price and a (detuned) Z motor. Hope that helps. Happy hunting.

We do have a Quest sub-forum. I'd flip through those threads and look for trends while keeping in mind some people do create an account and log in to just to post a complaint and then vanish.

Yeah those quests weren't great.
In addition to what Bubba said, that was also a new vehicle launch in a brand new assembly plant (not much experience), with brand new suppliers. So not only is the build quality questionable, the subcomponents are too.

Trash.

Topic moved to the Quest forum.

I would stay as far away from 04 as possible due to the ECU housing corrosion issues and overall old age and high mileage of any vehicle for sale.

I too would avoid it. 2006-2010 or 2011+ are much better in pretty much all aspects.