Faults:

New handbrake cable.

General Comments:

This Nissan Pulsar SSS is an absolute gem. A little unrefined compared to today's standards, and compared to other cars of its same time (1994) - but this is to be expect of a car which at the time it was first registered on the roads (1995) it was a run out model and was 5 years old - in other-words, due for a replacement model.

It is pretty comfy to drive with very supportive seats being the up-spec SSS. Has a pretty nice interior when compared to cars of similar price and era. Plastics are solid except parts can be quite brittle if care is not taken while removing them.

It handles very well - the steering is light (sometimes a bit on the too light side - but this can actually be adjusted via an adjustment on the steering rack) and very direct. There is ample feed-back through the steering rack and I can feel the front wheels travel over a painted line on the road! The adjustments for wheel alignment are also very impressive. The thread is so fine that a proper wheel alignment cannot be done properly if a wheel bearing has any slack in it whatsoever.

With Independant suspension all round, the car can be set up to handle very sweetly. The car can handle like it is on rails for the weekend, but on a sunday afternoon your can swap suspension gear so easily it can be a smooth-riding passenger car.

Braking performance with the stock brakes is more than enough for enthusiastic road use. Don't expect them to pull up like the GTi-R's big AD22VF calipers do though... If you do need it to pull up that quickly, the ADV22VF calipers are a direct bolt on to the stock hub...

The SR20DE is a gem of a motor. An almost perfect square bore/stroke ratio gives this motor free-revving capability and makes for an easy drive with plenty of torque don low. These motors are prone to being driven hard though and are prone to developing a tap-tap-tap noise which is commonly mis-diagnosed as the timing chain (which also makes some noise, especially if the timing chain tensioner is stuffed - which is very common as well). The SR20DE is also know to have a weak head at high revs, so avoid a motor which looks like it has been abused at some stage in its life - even though it will probably last the lifetime of the car, its not worth the risk. These can be expensive motors to work on, and can be very hard to work around as well. THe spark plugs are platnium tipped jobs which cost $80, but then again they last 100,000km at minium, so you can't really complain too much. Almost impossible to remove oil filter unless you have Monkey hands.

Gearbox is nowhere near as strong as the motor, however, and care must be taken to avoid killing it with abuse. Synchros wear out very quickly under hard use, just like most small 4cyl gearboxes.

The main place for rust to appear in the N14 is around the boot - especially if a rear spoiler has been fitted.

If you find a good example of an N14 pulsar, go for it. They are excellent cars. Mine is 10 years old and has 150,000km on the clock and not a single rattle inside the cabin.

Despite rather expensive parts, they are very easy to come by.

The N14's safety in an accident is also very good.

Faults:

It does awfully in a crash.

Gas supports for hatch don't support the hatch anymore.

General Comments:

A nice city car, easy to park and nice and economical, On the open road it had great economy about 6-7L/100k with 4 passengers and a bit of weight in the boot, but when a gust of wind came across it you could feel the car wasn't upto it.

The brakes were quite good until about 120kmph and after that you had quite a task stopping the car quickly. Accelerating it was about the same it wouldn't accelerate very quickly after it hit 120kmph.

It was an extremely reliable car, being the family car since new it never skipped a beat and always started regardless of conditions.

The ride inside was pretty awful, there was always something rattling and seats weren't that comfortable, but descent enough.

The car was finally rid of when it got into a crash and it bent in quite severely so if you want a safe car I would advise against this one.

Faults:

Very soft bearing noise from the gearbox as the clutch is applied when changing gears.

General Comments:

I'm very happy with the car. The Ti is equipped with all the luxury accessories (full electrics, ABS, sunroof etc). It accelerates very strongly, the 2.0 gets up at about 4000rpm and really pulls strong right to the 7500rpm red line. The car is a great overall package.