EDIT: 2013, not 2014.
So as a former moderator on Maxima.org forum and someone who has driven, raced, and worked on Maximas for many years I was fairly excited when I got to my car rental place in Florida on Thursday and found out my rental was a 2014 Maxima (yeah AAA free double-upgrade).
As I always do with rental cars, I went right to the nearest gas station and put a few extra psi in the tires (34 all around) since I wanted to push the car a bit when I had time. Tires were near full-tread and in good shape. Car had about 15k miles on it.
Obviously caveat this by saying that it was a rental car, so was a fairly "base" model (as base as a Maxima gets, with tons of power stuff, sunroof, etc etc), but the main difference seems to be just the seats...had 18" wheels but no GPS and no Bose.
I had a chance to drive it over 4 days on highways, slow-speed roads out to the island, and found some curvies to play on as well. So here are my impressions:
Interior: So this had the cloth seats. They were very comfortable. But not in "a good way" so to say. The material and (complete lack of) bolstering reminded me of my grandfather's 1985 Oldsmobile. Even moderate cornering required bolstering with my left foot or knee on the center console to stay in the seat (I'm 6'0, 175). They made the stock seats in my 2000 Maxima feel like Recaros in comparison, and those were pretty lame as well. They were 8-way power adjustable so that was nice. Like I said, they were comfy for highway cruising, but dreadful for even moderately sporty driving. Also they were so wide they must be designed for NFL offensive linemen or something. I'm pretty average-sized and I don't think my ass even touched the bolsters on either side, lol.
The rest of the interior was markedly dated in its appearance. The dash is soft-touch, but there is literally no style on the inside of this car. I feel like it's something GM would have designed in the 80s, but with nicer materials and buttons. There was nothing about the interior that made me say "well, that's a nice touch." And I drive a WRX, so I have pretty damn low standards for interior.
The multi-function center screen and HVAC controls worked fine but the screen graphics were, again, very dated in their appearance (Amber block numbers). Steering wheel felt nice with leather wrap, but I HATED the radio and cruise control buttons. They have on either spoke these up-down toggle switch things and when making tight turns in parking lots my hand constantly hit these, thus changing the radio station repeatedly, lol.
Steering: Dreadful. Not sure if these are electric or hydraulic, but steering was pretty numb and heavier than it should be, and wasn't very linear in my opinion. On a car with this low miles, I can't imagine anything is wrong with it. No sign of mis-alignment wear on the tires. I didn't enjoy turns as there wasn't much feel at all.
Drivetrain: I've disliked CVT before, but now I really dislike it. Somehow the CVT on this car made the powerful VQ35 (290hp) feel like about 190 hp. Car felt torquey if you really laid on it from a stoplight, but then you had to wait a few seconds for the one-tire-fire to hook up. I played with the manual "shift" as well, which frankly made it even less fun. The car feels substantially slower and less peppy than VQ30 and VQ35 Maximas from previous generations. The complete lack of engine nose added to the feeling of the car just simply not being very fast, even if, on paper, it is quite quick. It blows my mind that Nissan re-introduced the 7th generation Maxima as the reincarnation of "4DSC" (4-door-sportscar) when this drivetrain has no inkling of sportiness to it at all. To boot, the VQ35 in this car isn't the least bit smooth, which is one of the things I've always loved about VQ-series engines. It feels like it's working hard all the time, even under moderate acceleration.
Brakes were pretty good. Nothing special, but no complaints either.
Handling was the biggest disappointment. With 18" wheels and fairly low-profile tires up a few psi from the stock rating, I expected more. The car wallows like a boat and feels gigantic in the corners. I honestly almost ran off onto a shoulder exiting a corner as it pushed right through, and I wasn't pushing it all that hard (I didn't think). IIRC it had some Bridgestone tires on it (I assume the stock ones) and they were lousy, and squealy, and had little grip. But aside from that the suspension wallowed all over the place in hard turns, even on smooth roads. The Chevy Sonic I rented last month felt about 10x as sporty on its 14" wheels and skinny tires. This Maxima may actually rate as one of the least enjoyable suspensions on any car I've ever driven in stock form. My wife's 2005 Sequoia feels sharper on turn-in and handling response (seriously).
Suspension was fine in terms of comfort, no complaints there. Again though, far cushier and mushier than even the base-level 4th, 5th, and 6th gens I've driven in the past.
What else.....trunk is absolutely huge, though the trunk remote open switch is tough to find in the dark if you don't already know where it is (as are the side-mirror adjustment buttons). Legroom in back is great, even with the front seats all the way back. Legroom up front is good, but I found my knee was pretty sore from hitting the center console stack, which is really wide (same complaint I have on the 1st-generation Mazda3, FWIW).
Sightlines are pretty good, no big blind spots and a lot of glass. Even with the high waistline, you can get the seat high enough to comfortably put your elbow on the windowsill and still not have your head in the roof.
Exterior is an opinion matter, but I think they look reasonably good (though oddly the new Altima looks similar, but better in my opinion). The gas cap cover (which is push-to-open and not remote) did not sit very flush and popped open a few times on the road for no apparent reason. The front bumper cover on this white car was yellowing a bit, so not sure what's going on there. No evidence of any accident damage, so who knows.
Power windows are really fast, which is nice since my WRX windows are slow as hell :)
Headlights were decent, and the gauge lighting is somewhat dated-looking, but still nice.
So, that's all I can think of at the moment. Overall, I put a few hundred miles on the car and it was entirely unremarkable, and made me kind of wish they had just given me a Ford Focus instead of double-upgrading me. It was a white-bread appliance and nothing more, which is highly disappointing to me, as I had some expectation that Nissan had actually put some sporty back into the Maxima after the 6th gen experiment. So it makes me kind of sad, as someone who really used to love Maximas. But now I know why every single time I see one of these locally it's a 50-something woman driving it. This car feels like my mother would love to drive it. And coincidentally, my parents were down there as well (they had a rental Sentra), and mom DID drive the Maxima a few miles home after a wedding reception (I stayed to drink more, lol), and she said "it's nice, but..." and seemed to infer that she likes her 2011 Sonata better..
I've driven their mid-level Sonata (did a review on it here a couple years ago), with the 4cyl non-turbo. That car is WAAAAAAY more fun than this Maxima was. Even the Sonata's automatic tranny is better than the Maxima's CVT.
In summary: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH NISSAN THESE DAYS?????? Please, Nissan, just put the Maxima out of its Misery, since the Altima is already pretty much the same car anyhow and nicer looking to boot. The Maxima doesn't deserve to be turned into a mushy appliance........
I didn't even bother taking any pics of the car, but it looked exactly like this, except with differnt (and better-looking) wheels
I went in with low expectations, but I actually liked it more than I thought I would, but still...
