Faults:

My gas pedal sticks.

The head gasket ripped at 40,000KMs.

The Brake drums rusted out completely at 30,000KMs.

The car died suddenly and would not start.

Clogged catalytic converter not once, but twice.

Acceleration is decreasing daily.

General Comments:

Let me first say I researched and researched this car to death before buying it.

I read every comment possible on the new model Sentra and decided to go with it instead of the Honda Civic. I had a Civic for 8 years and was very happy, but the new Civic had lost its front wishbone suspension and I was sort of protesting it.

Well I ended up punishing myself. This car is a lemon. I should have realized it when it was designed in California and built in Mexico. There is nothing Japanese about it with regards to reliability.

In fact, in Canada the "salt on the road" test has shown that its brake drums are made of the cheapest metal known to man. Mine rusted out at 30,000KM. An old gentlemen came into the dealership after me and was told his had rusted out as well. He had only 9,000KM on his car!

I will attempt to list all of the problems I had. First we had acceleration problems. They said there was a Catalytic converter problem, but changed their minds at the dealer. The acceleration problem came back. They did a line cleaning. Again the problem returned. To this day the problem is still there and it takes more and more RPMs to shift. We have given up trying to pass cars.

The other problems including a clogged Catalytic converter caused by the torn head gasket, a gas pedal that sticks all the time and I no one can figure out how to stop it from doing it, and it has died twice for no apparent reason. Again no one knows why.

The fuel economy has been terrible. We did an estimate and we are getting the same kilometres as a mid size Honda Accord. In 9 months we will be able to sell this sad puppy and buy a Honda Accord. That day cannot come to soon.

I guess I should put in some pluses. It does have a lot of add ons like a better stereo, bigger wheels, and the body metal is superior to others in its class.

Faults:

I have had to have the car towed twice due to various engine sensor problems. Even though these were covered by my extended warranty, Nissan would not provide a rental car until they found the exact problem. Once the problem is identified, it's fixed quickly, but just finding it seems to take about 4 days on average.

It's in the shop right now for a bad idle air control valve, which is covered by warranty. The fan belt and tensions pulleys that also have to be replaced right now are not covered, but they MAY pay for them since they've missed the problem I complained about at my last 2 regular service appointments.

As for the lemon law, it doesn't apply (has to be the same problem over and over in a limited amount of time).

Customer service at the last dealer my car was towed to was horrible. They never called me a single time even though I didn't know exactly where my car had been taken. Once I found it, they wouldn't answer any questions. After 6 days I called and was told, "it was ready yesterday" and that nothing was wrong with it, even though it shut off on the freeway and would not restart.

There are small problems like the CD player eating discs, the engine slipping out of gear when it's cold, the rotors need refinishing even when the brake pads are good, the dipstick broke, etc. These are minor compared to what I'm used to dealing with, sitting on the side of the road!

General Comments:

There's ample storage/passenger space with few blind spots.

Handling is not so good when the wind picks up, the car is light for better gas mileage which means it gets blown all over the place if I'm driving alone. It's scary during storms.

I can't wait to get it back so I can start the process of getting rid of it and finding a quality vehicle.