Nissan expands its certified pre-owned program to include decade-old cars, Stellantis wants more of its cars to be made from recycled stuff, the Sony and Honda joint venture EV will support paid subscription services. All this and more in today’s issue of The Morning Dump.
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
Nissan Will Now Sell You A Ten-Year-Old Certified Pre-Owned Car
Despite supply and wholesale values of used cars easing, prices are still incredibly high. It makes sense, then, that Nissan would follow in Honda’s footsteps by expanding its certified pre-owned program to include models up to ten years old with up to 100,000 miles. Dubbed Certified Select, Nissan even says that this program will even include certain non-Nissan models, although each Certified Select model will only be covered by a six-month, 6,000-mile warranty.
However, arguably the most important part of this program is online sales. Retailers like Carvana have made huge inroads by offering detailed online pricing and shopping options, so Nissan’s adapting to fit these new consumer demands. From Nissan:
“As pre-owned vehicle sales continue to outpace those of new vehicles in the marketplace, Certified Select allows our trusted dealerships to offer more high-quality options for shoppers,” said Dan Mohnke, vice president, eCommerce, Nissan U.S. “And we’ve further committed to customer satisfaction by offering a seamless online purchase option and a complimentary maintenance visit.”
While there’s nothing like being able to check out a car in person to make sure panels are straight, paint matches, and mechanicals are in good condition, we now have the technology to offer transparent pricing online, so why spend more time on a dealership lot than necessary? Expect Certified Select models to go live on Nissan’s Nissan@home e-commerce platform shortly.
Stellantis Wants More Recycled Content In Its Cars
Pricing for commodities like steel is quite high right now, so it’s not surprising to see Reuters report that Stellantis wants to substantially increase recycled content in its new cars.
In its business plan, Stellantis has set a goal to boost revenues of its recycling business ten-fold to over 2 billion euros ($1.9 billion) by 2030. It also aims to quadruple revenues from extended-life parts and services.
“We talk about having a minimum target of 35% of recycled materials in our vehicles, it will vary by vehicles,” Jones said.
“Of course we’ll look to increase that, because we want to make sure we take more material and put it back in our vehicles going forward,” she added, without specifying what the percentage might rise to.
Presenting Stellantis’s Circular Economy business at on online press conference, Jones said the project – based on “reman”, “repair”, “reuse” and “recycle” – would help the group meet its carbon net zero target set for 2038.
Higher recycled material content is all well and good, but the “reman” part of Stellantis’ plan is particularly exciting. Does this mean remanufactured cars or just remanufactured parts? Either possibility is quite interesting as manufacturers historically haven’t been keen on taking on projects like that. Many remanufactured auto parts just aren’t remanufactured well, so if Stellantis can do better, have at it.
Alpine Has A Fun Way To Use Hydrogen
Just because the era of fossil fuel-powered cars is slowly coming to a close in developed nations doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the end of the road for the combustion engine. Alpine recently revealed a new concept car that turns hydrogen into power, noise, and steam.
Called the Alpenglow, it’s a hydrogen-powered supercar concept meant to preview some themes of Alpine’s LMDh race car coming in 2024. Hydrogen stored at 700 bar gets burned in a combustion engine to produce clean tailpipe emissions and the unmistakable roar of a traditional performance car.
While the Alpenglow is far from the first vehicle to burn hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, it’s the first concept to do so in a while. BMW experimented with a hydrogen-burning bangle-butt 7-Series but found combusting hydrogen to be rather inefficient. Despite featuring a six-liter V12, the Hydrogen 7 only mustered up 256 horsepower, far from an impressive number.
Power output for the Alpine Alpenglow hasn’t been announced yet, although I’d be interested in hearing exactly what powertrain it uses and what projected output might be. If significant improvements have been made to internal combustion hydrogen powertrains since the 2000s, they could be a viable way of keeping some automotive pantomime going in the future.
More Details On That Honda And Sony Partnership Emerge
Hey, remember how Honda and Sony plan on making a car together? Well, more details have arisen regarding this joint venture and they’re not all positive. Reuters reports that this new car will support digital microtransactions.
The new EV will also be priced at a premium, offering a new software system developed by Sony that would open the way to recurring revenue from entertainment and other services that would be billed monthly, the companies said.
The update from the joint venture, Sony Honda Mobility, is the first since the two companies launched the project in June.
Tread carefully with this one, Honda and Sony. So long as subscriptions don’t just activate hardware already installed in the car, they should be just dandy. However, putting digital transactions aside, the electric vehicle itself sounds quite neat. It’ll have Level 3 autonomy, which is a confusing step in the automation process but an important development in the grand scheme of things. Expect to see this new EV on the market in 2026.
The Flush
Whelp, time to drop the lid on today’s edition of The Morning Dump. Happy Thursday, everyone. The weekend is just around the corner, which means that it’s almost time to head out for a bit of an autumn drive. For me, autumn drives often mean cranking up the heated seats, which begs a question: What’s one in-car gizmo you simply can’t live without?
Lead photo credit: Nissan
Dubbed Certified Select, Nissan even says that this program will even include certain non-Nissan models, even though each Certified Select model will only be covered by a six-month, even 6,000-mile warranty.
FIFY
As far as things I can’t live without in a car, probably just a heater. I love a good stereo, and air conditioning is awesome, but I have done without all of those in the past. Prior to moving up north, the heater was also something I got by without when my heater core rusted out.
“offering a new software system developed by Sony that would open the way to recurring revenue from entertainment and other services that would be billed monthly, the companies said.”
Fine by me as long as its 100% optional and I can completely ignore it* in leu of my already extensive MP3 collection.
*meaning no “helpful” reminders, no proprietary music players, no crippled features, etc. They can ask once, and take FUCK NO!!! as an answer.
Bluetooth audio and heated front seats are the only absolute deal breakers.
I miss the rain sensing wipers my Volvo had, so would go out of my way for them in future, although not an absolute requirement. I’d also have a hard time buying another car with halogen headlamps or no back-up camera
So it’s possible future Jeeps may be made from actual recycled older jeeps?
There has to be a rehashed old-tech joke in there somewhere
Despite featuring a six-liter V12, the Hydrogen 7 only mustered up 256 horsepower, far from an impressive number.
Even worse it got 4.7MPG on H2 vs 16.9 MPG on gasoline:
The Hydrogen 7 uses more fuel than many trucks, consuming 13.9 L/100 km for gasoline (petrol) and 50 L/100 km for hydrogen. The following table shows the consumption (L/100 km) and fuel economy (mpg) for both Imperial and US gallons.
Fuel Consumption Table for the BMW Hydrogen 7 Gasoline (petrol) Hydrogen
L/100 km Imp. mpg US mpg L/100 km Imp. mpg US mpg
13.9 20.3 16.9 50.0 5.6 4.7
The difference in fuel consumption is largely due to the different energy density with gasoline (petrol) yielding 34.6 MJ/L and liquid hydrogen yielding 10.1 MJ/L. Based on these energy density figures, one would expect 47.6 L/100 km for hydrogen based on 13.9 L/100 km for gasoline (petrol); which is very close to the stated 50.0 L/100 km. Using hydrogen in an internal combustion engine as a source of energy is far less efficient than fuel cell technologies; however, this is a system that is in production (albeit limited) now.
Its gets even worse:
The hydrogen fuel is stored in a large, nearly 170-litre (45-US-gallon),[6] bi-layered and highly insulated tank that stores the fuel as liquid rather than as compressed gas, which BMW says offers 75% more energy per volume as a liquid than compressed gas at 700 bars of pressure.[7] The hydrogen tank’s insulation is under high vacuum in order to keep heat transfer to the hydrogen to a bare minimum, and is purportedly equivalent to a 17-metre (56 ft) thick wall of polystyrene Styrofoam.[8]
To stay a liquid, hydrogen must be cooled and maintained at cryogenic temperatures of, at warmest, −253 °C (20.1 K; −423.4 °F). When not using fuel, the Hydrogen 7’s hydrogen tank starts to warm and the hydrogen starts to vaporize. Once the tank’s internal pressure reaches 87 psi, at roughly 17 hours of non-use, the tank will safely vent the building pressure. Over 10–12 days, it will completely lose the contents of the tank because of this.
The car is powered by a 6.0 litre V12 engine capable of running on both premium gasoline and hydrogen fuel. It is rated at 191-kilowatt (260 PS; 256 hp) and 390 N⋅m (290 lb⋅ft) of torque using either fuel.[4] The car accelerates from stopped to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 9.5 seconds. The hydrogen fuel tank holds roughly 8 kg (18 lb) of hydrogen, enough to travel 201 kilometres (125 mi).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Hydrogen_7
Even my base GR86 has too many features for me, but AC is a need thanks to hotter, more humid summers as well as a stereo that can play from the phone since I don’t want to go back to carrying and swapping physical media. I like keyless entry, but I’d be fine losing it in exchange for a good old-fashioned small key that doesn’t bulk-out my pocket and need a battery. I’d like to say I could do without power windows, but between getting older and the general difficulty of reaching around the bulky seats and consoles of modern cars to access each door from the driver’s seat, I’ll put them in the need list (plus, I can’t recall ever personally having a power window issue in about 800k miles of driving, but did have several winders pop off old cars, so there’s really no advantage to winders).
Old tech I don’t want to lose is a manual transmission unless it’s a single speed like with an electric since I find modern too-many-speed automatics to be insufferably frustrating with the constant hunting and the shifting delays and I don’t trust the longevity of CVTs. Maybe if they went back to 3-speed autos with OD—inefficient as they were, they didn’t actively piss me off.
So the Sony-Honda car will be super expensive AND I get to pay a monthly fee for services. Fuck yeah!!!! Where do I buy 5 of them?
The one thing I can’t live without in a car is bluetooth. Terrestrial radio is simply awful with it’s always repeating playlists and commercials and sadly a lot of satellite radio has fallen into the same trap (I’m looking at you Lithium and Turbo).
Having the bulk of my driving experiences in high school in a 2005 Ford Focus and a 2010 Ford Flex, and then in late high school and college in a ’97 Econoline and recently a ’12 Prius v, I honestly think my “must-have” feature is cruise control. Only the Focus lacked it, and I hated it for it. Which is a shame because it was an awesome, peppy station wagon otherwise.
As a “nicety” but certainly not essential, the ’97 conversion Econoline had some kind of plush, cloth seats. Not leather. And I’d do decidedly unholy things to get those back. It was like driving from a goddamn recliner. Back then and still now, I see no need for heated nor ventilated seats with that material. They were the perfect unpowered compromise seats.
Not necessarily CPOs, but it has been interesting this year to see so many older used cars on dealer lots. I haven’t been interested enough to look at pricing, but just driving by I can tell there are quite a few that would have gone straight to the auction in normal times.
Flush: auto-dimming rear-view mirror. As LED headlights with “adaptive” high beams become more prevalent, I am ever thankful my car has this feature. It is particularly necessary when driving an actual car in a sea of trucks, SUVs, and crossovers.
I like the idea of hydrogen being used to keep the engine noise in sports cars. It’s a niche enough market that the scaling problems won’t be as bad and it addresses one of my few complaints about performance EVs – they don’t sound good. However, they better be able to do better HP/liter than that BMW one. Pretty limited market for a hydrogen-powered sports car that gets embarrassed by your neighbor’s base Model 3.
Then buy a better car than your neighbors cheap imitation of a laptop on 4 wheels.
I’ve got a mildly used 2004 Volvo XC70 with about 240K on the clock that I could be convinced to sell for $20,000.00. But only if I receive the right inducements.
The basics to me are a heater, AC, and power windows. The luxuries I want are heated power seats and a heated steering wheel. And for at least one car I own at all times, a convertible top.
The one gadget I won’t live without anymore is cruise control. Old fashioned or adaptive is OK with me, as long as the adaptive can be set to old style when I want to.
I rarely use a radio, so all the entertainment options are of minimal value.
Everything else can be nice to have, but there’s not much else I’d pay extra for now that back-up cameras are standard safety equipment.
I can live without ventilated seats, but I will not buy a car with leather without them.
We need more inexpensive new cars. Nissan needs to bring over the Renault Kwid.
I’ve been saying for years that if International would come out with a cheap, tough, basic no-nonsense truck like they built in the 70s they would sell faster than they could build them. Also, yes we need good cheap cars like back in the day, geo metros, k cars, old school civics, and early Saturn’s. The only cheap cars I see now are junk.
I like tech and gadgets in cars that are useful. I am not a luddite who thinks crank windows were a bad idea :).
This is tough, but my top 3 are heated seats, remote start, and blindspot monitoring. Living in the snow belt, starting the car 10 minutes before I go out to clean it off makes life easy. The heated seats are great until the heater gets to operating temp.
The blindspot is because I have cleared a lane, start to move over, then someone goes “Not on my watch” and slams their foot to the floor. This has saved me a few times and gives me time to prepare my signal finger.
Hah! I’ll disable most blind spot monitoring indicators that I can in my cars, because in heavy, “asshole saturated” traffic, it simply tells the asshole next to you that they’ve successfully closed the gap enough and effectively blocked you from the lane. People are using the little lights in your side mirrors against you.
I am OK with blind spot monitoring if the warning lights are inside the car where only the driver can get a clear look at them. Otherwise, they’re at least as much a disadvantage as they are an advantage in heavy traffic.
Besides, I keep my mirrors adjusted so I don’t really have blind spots. Things next to me, I turn my head for. Things in traditional blind spots are viewed in the side mirrors. And things behind me are viewed in the rearview mirror.
In my experience, blind spot monitoring is only necessary if your mirrors are set too far in, the way most people set theirs. There’s no need to see the side panel of your own car.
The one in my car is a flashing light on the mirrors, not too bad.
There have been plenty of times where I go to change lanes, the person is 5 or more car lengths back, then decides to make it a race as I sweep my eyes to from the mirror to the road. Or the jerk who decides that moving when I start is good idea.
I have my mirrors adjusted to reduce the blindspots as much as possible but cannot eliminate it or deal with the a-hole factor. I see it as another tool to make me aware or for sudden changes between my constant eye/head sweeps.
For autumn drives, the one feature I couldn’t live without is a convertible roof. With the sun shining, leaves changing, and outside temperatures solidly in the comfortable zone, the end of convertible season is frequently the best part. Just driving home from work yesterday was a real treat, and put a smile on my face. I can’t see that happening in a hardtop.
Flush: In car gizmo, radio. More specific, bluetooth enabled radio. Regular terrestrials radio is just bad now a days, outside of people listening to public radio I can’t understand anyone that listens to regular radio.
I’ve been anti-radio since high school. I grew up in the rural south. Grunge hit right as I became a teenager; so I was, of course, all in. Good luck having Nirvana turn up on the local radio stations. Our choices were classic rock, easy listening, both country & western, gospel, and ‘urban’ (aka R&B and Hip-hop). I went with the good ole portable CD player with cassette tape adapter and have kept updating since then. Satellite radio is better with variety, but it repeats way too much. Also, I don’t feel like paying to hear people who aren’t funny talk as if they were hilarious.
In my neck of the woods, people are crashing their cars faster than the current supply chain can build them. That can’t help.
If Sony’s car is anything like their electronics everything will be proprietary and refuse to work with any other manufacturer. The charger will be proprietary, the rims and tires will be proprietary, the key will be a Sony branded Memory Stick Pro, and you’ll probably have to wear Sony branded shoes and gloves to interface with the pedals and steering wheel.
Good move by Nissan, their median customer is probably shopping for a 10 year old car nowadays anyways.
They’re probably at their Stellantis dealers right now!
With the demise of the Journey and Fiat models, and moving the Voyager to fleet-only, I’m not sure Stellantis sells anything cheap enough for that market anymore.
I’m sad to see the Fiats go the way of the dodo. They’re not GOOD cars, but they are cheerful ones…and in a sea of angry grayscale crossovers I still get a nice little serotonin boost when I run into them in the wild. I’ve thought about getting the convertible top (if you can even call it that) Abarth as a cheap weekend car but I can’t get over that overarching feeling that it’s going to leave me stranded on a country road.
Me too. I keep wanting to get an Abarth, but then I remember my Fiat 128 SL from the early 1970s. Most fun car ever, yes. Worst car ever, definitely.
You know that somethings have changed in 50 years right? Back then Audi was making so-so cars based on so-so VW mechanicals, American cars were a joke and BMW was an esoteric brand just starting to get noticed because of the 2002. It always amazes me that some people hang on to whatever perception they form decades ago. For the record, the modern Fiat 500 is known to be pretty durable and reliable despite cheapish interior fittings. Several years ago, it was rated as second most reliable city car in its segment the UK, behind a Yaris.
This is all great info, thanks for sharing.
Oh dear. Aside from having a FIAT dealership, my work also has Audi. Great cars when they are working but 2-4 year old cars coming in needing new thermostats and water pumps is unacceptable. I get it too much. 2.0 TFSI cars. Before that it was shitty dual clutch gearbox issues but they seem to be pretty good last few years. Put it this way if I was buying a 2.0 TFSI A4 or Q5 I wouldn’t touch anything pre ’17 and I would budget 3k for when the thermostat and water pump go. They have definitely gotten better and I frankly wouldn’t buy anything pre-17. Oh and fucking screen issues, whenever there is an iphone update or whatever everything needs to be paired or the bluetooth doesn’t work, MMI randomly resetting itself these are all 2022 problems. Plus the new cars have no character. A pre-facelift B9 A4 had a good engine, great fuel economy and looked handsome. the 2nd Gen A5 coupe looks gorgeous and can be specced really nicely. The S4 is a rocket. The Q2 handles really well and is nice to punt around in the country whilst also being really easy to drive in tight spots. and the outgoing Q3 whilst looking like a dumpy baby elephant was kinda fun in a crap way and grew on me really quick. The new Q3 is plasticky shit, the new A6 looks too big and has shitty screens everywhere, the new A7 is gorgeous but has the same garbage interior as the A6, and the big snozz on the facelifted Q7 and the Q8 is just vulgar. Also break your mirror glass on a q8 and goodbye 1500 bucks because the glass is some special crap I can’t remember the name of.
That’s a lot of caveats. City car, segment, the UK. How many cars are on this list?
BTW, I’ve had an Abarth since ’14, bought new, and Tony has only had to replace brake pads, discs, tires, a dash light bulb and a TPS sensor since the, and give it an Italian tune up weekly. I drive the wheels off mine, but have kept it stock other than wheels and tires which is key. Wifey liked my Abarth so much she bought a loaded 500S and the story has been the same.
Some Fiats ARE actually very good, and that includes the Abarth 500. Fiat has won numerous European Car Of The Year awards and is a perennial best seller in countries that aren’t the truck / SUV obsessed US. Abarths are pretty well loved by the international press too. Just ‘mericans that refuse to let go of a stereotype formed half a decade ago, and not helped by Fiat’s nonexistent PR and so-so dealers. Just buy a well maintained one that hasn’t been modded and you’ll be fine. Unlike a Corolla or Civic on which it doesn’t matter much, proper maintenance is key. See my other post below.
I work for a group that includes a FIAT dealership. Manual ones are ok, I’d be happy with a 500 or Abarth variant with a manual but the autos are shitboxes which you’d think they’d have sorted out since the car has basically been on sale since 2008 but nope, they are shit and have left plenty of people stranded. And when the workshop is full of broken down shitbox autos it means the people have have just been stranded have to wait a few weeks to get back on the road. Talking about 500 and Abarth variants here. The only other issue I have seen repeatedly is the airbag cover on the passenger side gets warped by the sun and pops up (airbag hasn’t deployed though)
Can’t wait to run into these 10 year old certified Altimas when they get financed over 8 years at 11% APR to people with credit scores at their body temperature…who will then promptly drive them 35 over in the left lane with one headlight out laying on the horn for me to get out of the way when I’m going already doing 71 in a 55. No one is better at giving people who shouldn’t have cars cars than Nissan…and listen, I don’t intend this statement to be classist or anything, we’ve all been broke before (or at least I have). But the wildest shit I see on public roads is consistently being dished out by Nissan sedans in varying states of disrepair.
At this point when I see one blasting anywhere near me I get the hell out of the way. The Big Altima Energy is real…and it would be funny if it didn’t put so many people at risk. Not everyone is responsible enough to be handed the keys to a car, and that’s fine. Nissan needs to stop enabling those people though.
The one feature I can’t live without is keyless entry. I didn’t have it until this summer because I drove a hooptie Suburban for years then got a base GTI, which had manual keys until the MK8s came out. I had no idea what I was missing…just being able to walk up to your car, hop in, start it, and go without touching your keys is amazing. It’s just so much more convenient, and when I’m in a waiting for the coffee to hit daze at 7am leaving for work everyday it’s a godsend…because my pre caffeine monkey brain doesn’t have to strain itself too much.
I thought the base Mk8 GTI S has pushbutton start but not the full KESSY keyless access, you still have to click the fob – a somewhat common base model cheapening across brands. I get it, cheaper to not do the ignition cylinder etc. and just build them all with the pushbutton, but I think the proximity entry part is more useful than the pushbutton start to me. Having my hands full and being able to just bump the back of my hand or even arm or something on the handle to lock behind me is super handy.
I’m perpetually loading my furry friend and the wife’s “pack absolutely everything then pack more just to be safe” approach into and out of the car. It really is super helpful during those times. I always throughly the feature seemed like a luxury gimmick but once you live with it for a while there’s no going back.
Just be real careful with keyless entry. A common call I get is people who have opened their car, put their bag with the key in it on the passenger seat and closed the door. I am assuming what happens is bag blocks weak key signal. Car thinks bag is a person in the passenger seat so locks doors (and why not? If someone needs to get in the ‘passenger’ inside can just unlock the car for them) and voila, driver is locked out of their own car. I have keyless start on my scooter and its about the dumbest thing ever. Because you cannot run the engine with the sidestand down it either means you get on the scooter after putting your gloves and helmet on which sucks because putting the key in your pockets with proper armoured gloves on is a pain or you have to sit down, flick up sidestand, hold you helmet in one hand hoping to not drop it, with gloves up on the handle bars, turn the knob, hit the key button, shove keys in pocket, put helmet on then gloves and then go. As opposed to just walking up, turning bike on and letting it warm up on the stand whilst you check the indicators and lights and chuck your helmet and gloves on.
I try to crack a window if I ever leave a key in the car with it running to minimize the chance of that happening, be it keyless or keyed. (knock wood) That could be a habit from a brief stint as a valet parking attendant years ago though.
Nissan must have a sixth sense about it or something.
Everyone talks about the “Camry dent,” but around my area at least I see far more “Altima gouges” and “Altima bashed-in quarter panels” and “Altima kinked hood or trunk that won’t close” and “Altima crumpled front and rear doors on the same side.”
In my experience, the “certification” process for CPO cars is meaningless and worthless. And so is the warranty they put on them. So selling older cars as certified is just an excuse to justify the higher price.
Some of the CPO programs are pretty good…Porsche’s in particular is exemplary. If you’re looking to buy a second hand car that has a reputation for being a maintenance headache I think CPOs can be useful for the extended warranty and the fact that they often catch you up on any deferred maintenance. But for a regular ass car like an Altima? Meh
The people I know that bought a “Certified” vehicle either didn’t use the warranty or the warranty didn’t cover what broke. As far warranty claims, it has been for stuff like engine accy belts, batteries, stereo speakers, plastic panels, O2 sensors and bulbs. Most were denied because the dealer said they were maintenance items. This was after selling the “Certified” as having been thoroughly inspected and good as new (for at least the warranty period).
Yeah, I bought a CPO Camaro, the bumper to bumper warranty was only 12,000 miles, so that was done in 4 months. Going 4 months without a failure isn’t an achievement, I’ll bet most of their buyers never touch the warranty at all.
The CPO RAV4 we bought had a new Toyota battery, fresh brakes all around, new tires, and the interior was spotless. Then again that dealer was known to be fairly decent. Family later bought a Sienna AWD from them that was all but CPO. They were upfront that the van had some deep scratches that would need significant work to remove, and they couldn’t justify it from a cost perspective. It’s been a great vehicle for them, scratches included.
In-car gizmo? Most likely a radio. While I can tolerate silence in the car for a time, if I’m driving alone for more than 30 minutes I’m going to need at least some noise.
Is it really a 10-year-old Altima if it doesn’t roll on at least one bald donut spare, have a trash bag over a missing window, and smell like bong water?
Ensuring those things are in place is part of the 105-point inspection.
“I’m sorry Mr. Sales Manager, we can’t CPO this Altima. It’s rolling on four full-size tires.”
Dude! Don’t drink the bong water maaaaaan.
Seriously, more than once I’ve seen a 10-year-old Altima exactly as you describe. An acquaintance of mine even drove one, rolling on a bald donut spare, trash bag over a missing window, bong water smell included. Someone broke into it to pop the hood open and steal the battery, the wheels got stolen a week later(he was only able to find 3 from a junkyard, and the spare was bald when he got it out the trunk) and the owner didn’t have money for window repairs so he taped a trashbag over it to keep the interior from getting soaked in the rain. And the car smelled like bong water because we hotboxed it many times before all of that happened.
Your post brought back some fond memories.
Eventually, the car got totaled after someone who was driving like a jackass in a late 2000s Dodge Charger rear-ended it.
I also forgot to mention, as this completes what this car was.
We put a bootleg copy of Insane Clown Posse’s “The Great Milenko” into the CD player, and heard this unsettling grinding noise. The radio was full of dead cockroaches. We later found so was the glove box and inside the door panels.
“Excuse me, does this one include the pre-dented rear corner bumper or is that extra?”
If it’s like some of the older Nissans I’ve known people with, the window mechanism has a failed cheap-ass cable/nylon pulley regulator and has dropped open. New mechanisms aren’t cheap for someone driving a vehicle like that. What I did for others as the cars were junkyard bound in short order, was bolt the steel window glider to the door frame so that they would be permanently up.