bye-bye SE-R

[justin_d@ev1.net]

Well, the time finally came to sell the SE-R and get a new (to me) car.  My
93 was
really showing her age with 5th gear popout, dead A/C and assorted other
problems.
This is on top of several other repairs I'd already spent $ on, it made
sense to pay for
a newer car instead of an older one.
Plus my wife just got herself a new toy - 97 Miata, which has NO trunk
space leaving
me to get the "sensible" car...heh, heh.
I was looking at something around 12-14k, probably 4 door, that would still
be fun and
haul @ss... I looked at old M3's (too used), 3.5SE Altima's (too expensive)
and others.
The Spec-V just didn't do it for me and WRX's were too expensive.  So I
tried the
Maxima.

Wow!

I ended up getting a 2000 SE 5 speed, which are actually pretty hard to
find, most of
them are automatics and let me say that as hard as it was to say goodbye to
my SE-R,
I don't regret it at all.  The Max is basically a bigger version of the
SE-R, it drives like a
small car but has that great "torque at all speeds" feel to it, only with
even more torque
thanks to that beautiful 3 liter V6.  It's handling isn't nearly as soft as
I thought it might
be for such a big car and the shifter is wonderful.  The interior is
luxurious to me (no
leather thought) and the back seats are limosine like in their roominess.

If any of you out there have been looking for something to replace your
Sentra and
maybe want more room and a step up on the luxury ladder, I totally
recommend test
driving a Maxima!  (Especially if you can afford a 2002+ with the 3.5
engine)

Oh and Maxima.org is a great site. I'll still lurk around the list for the
time being and
thanks to everybody for all the great advice over the years.
Later,
Justin