anything to look out for?

if you get the chance to start the car cold after sitting for 24 hours listen for a clank and rattle. it might be a sign that the timing chain tensioner is going bad which is $$ to replace. Other then trying to get maintenance records from the owner there's nothing else to really worry about. The car has not had any major issues. What's the mileage on it? Like most FWD vehicles the cv joints eventually fail too. Check to see if these have been replaced. They will fail around the 100K mile mark. Run a carfax on the vin# too.All in all it's a VERY good car to buy

its a 95 with 79k, unless it was spun back. thanks for the tip, on the tensioners, what about running one quart of dexxron for an hour in the oil then changing the oil, they do that on Mitsubishis to clear the clacking sounds.

if you get it i would just go straight to a good 5w-30 synthetic like mobil1 or valvoline synpower. an oil conditioner/cleaner probably won't hurt. the tensioners in the max or powered by oil is what i understand and eventually the oil pathways get clogged and propper pressure isn't provided to the tensioner during start up because oil has all seeped back down into the oil pan.You've found a good one with respectably low mileage. With proper maintenance you should get 200K+ out of it!First things unless you have records that it's been recently done:-tranny fluid change (put a good synthetic ATF in there)-bleed brake fluid (use valvoline synpower)-drain and fill power steering fluid. use brake fluid in here(trust me) you can use the samevalvoline synpower. this brings me to something i forgot about. Keep an eye on your PS fluid levels. The 4th gen max's have a bad rep for having a very slow ps fluid leak, especially during the winter. Nothing critical, but keep an eye on it. If you never see a fluid level change at all during the winter you probably won't ever have to worry about it.-only use nissan oem headlights and foglights-radiator flush-change the spark plugs and get a rail flush for the fuel injectors. If not just put in some good fuel line cleaner like BG44K.-if you need parts go to either http://www.infinitipartsusa.com or http://www.infinitiparts.net it's probably best to just call both.

240fan wrote:on the tensioners, what about running one quart of dexxron for an hour in the oil then changing the oil, they do that on Mitsubishis to clear the clacking sounds.

that's exactly what i do almost every oil change.Except I ONLY use synthetic ATF like MOBIL1 ATF.Reason being a motor gets a lot hotter than a tranny and you dont want some of the trnny fluid in your engine to break down and add to trhe varnish/sludge problem.

Fred...

palmerwmd wrote:that's exactly what i do almost every oil change.Except I ONLY use synthetic ATF like MOBIL1 ATF.Reason being a motor gets a lot hotter than a tranny and you dont want some of the trnny fluid in your engine to break down and add to trhe varnish/sludge problem.

Fred...

Fred, what's a safe amount of ATF to put in the oil before oil change? Seems like if I"m putting in a quart I might want to drain some off first. But then again just running around for an hour or until everything is throroughly warmed up might not cause any rpoblems. I ask because I'm concerned about the oil choices and oil change history of the I30 due to the previous owner. Of course as usual I'm having it switched over to valvoline synpower(my oil of choice ) and it has the high detergents the car needs anyway, but something to just blast out the gunk in a single shot!

a full quart is probably still safe but I usually keep it at 3/4's or less.Idle for about 45 minutes.Drving is ok too in those circumstances as long as you dont rev hi and go very gently as in driving from your homne gently to the oil change location.(No hispeed/hirev driving especially if u went with a full quart as the much thinner ATF will thin out your base oil a lot.)

Fred...