Used Nissan Altima For Sale

First time ever leasing a car, and my first new car. Got it the end of Sept 2015. I went into the search wanting a base model Camry or Accord, but I did drive the Altima because a friend was a salesman there, but I liked the Camry better. Then I took the wife. She wanted the Altima because she liked the styling and how the dealership treated us, and the manager was going to lease us a top-of-the-line Altima SL for just a little more than the base model. It's a very pretty pearlized white, hard loaded. So we compromised and got the Altima. lol. Happy wife, happy... however the rest of the saying goes. The car has grown on me a lot. The fuel mileage on road trips is incredible, it's been getting in the 40's! Has plenty of power, very comfortable seats, road noise isn't as low as the Camry was, but it's quiet enough. Feels solid and stable, tight, corners well, interior materials feel good and look nice. I like driving it. The car is very comfortable for me, I'm 6'5" and 250. Plenty of room and comfort. Many cars that have sunroofs don't have enough headroom for me, but this Altima has plenty of head room, leg room, and lots of back seat room, even when I have the seat back. The CVT is... interesting. On the highway it's awesome. Set the cruise and go. Because it's continuously variable there's never any downshifting. You can watch the tach move up and down on hills, but you don't feel it, it's very smooth. You can hear the engine pick up rpms a little bit but it's not obtrusive or loud. So I really like it on trips. And did I mention the gas mileage is great?? We just got back from a trip up to Vail, CO and it had plenty of power on the passes and still got 41 mpg!! On another road trip with 4 people and our luggage we got 44 mpg! Love it! Around town it feels a little different. Tip-in throttle off the line doesn't provide much oomph, but once you're over 10 mph or so, it's got plenty of zip. Actually quite quick for a 4 cylinder. I never feel like it's underpowered. We live at 6200 feet elevation. The V6 version of the Altima must be a rocket with 80 more horses. Also around town the CVT isn't always as smooth and linear as a traditional automatic. Sometimes you notice a slight lag or surge. It doesn't bother the wife at all, I don't think she even notices it, but for me it's just a little odd, but not a deal-breaker. I notice that in town if I put it in D-sport mode it's more responsive and smooth. If you really want it to be snappy and drive aggressively around town, turn off the Over Drive. It leaves the engine in the higher rpms and feels like a little sports car. Overall, I don't mind the CVT and am happy with it. Here's some niggly things that I think Nissan should take care of for future Altimas: - When you hit the off button (it's keyless) it kills the power to everything; the stereo, the windows, it's OFF. Most cars leave the power on for a minute or two so you can roll windows up or listen to the radio. On the Altima, once you shut it off, that's it. Seems odd to me. - The sound system has no mute button... any where. You either have to turn the sound down or the system off. Not handy. - There is no scan or seek function on the stereo. Nothing but the tuning knob. Weird. You can toggle through your presets but that's it. - The detents on the tuning knob to change stations is too soft. It's hard to go one 'click' to the next station because you can barely feel the detents. - The voice command system feels kind of outdated. It's kinda clunky to use. - The Navigation system feels like it's from 3 generations ago. Our smart phones' GPS and navigation systems have become so simple, intuitive and make helpful suggestions, so they are quick and easy to use. Nissan's nav system feels old. And even when you have the street address and try to input it, sometimes it still can't seem to find the right address in its address book. But once you get the right place in, it navigates just fine. But sometimes you're sitting there inputting, deleting, inputting, backing out to the previous menu... it could be improved quite a bit. Come on Nissan, just use Google maps or something! - The back up camera resolution is ok, not great. I drove my friend's Jeep Cherokee and that back up camera is like High Def compared to the Altima's. Nissan could improve that. It's ok, just on the blurry side and makes it feel dated. - The cupholders are kinda on the small side, so my wife's water bottles that she takes on a run don't fit. - The info screen between the speedo and the tach has some info that is in a really small font. They should be increased for readability. Speaking of that screen between the gauges, I with Nissan gave the option having less screens to have to toggle through. The blue tooth connectivity seems fine. Overall even with the issues I mentioned, I really like the car and glad we got it. I'm impressed. My wife is very happy with it. It would be fun to drive a V6 Altima sometime.