Had to zip over to my dad's funeral last week and rented a Nissan Sentra S to make the trip. This one had the CVT tranny. I was far more impressed than I thought I'd be. The car is a great cruiser--at 70 MPH, the tach showed about 2000 RPM. No engine noise at all and the ride was quite serene as well. Very little tire/road noise. Drove into some fairly strong headwinds and no wind noise to speak of. Sound system was very nice. Peppy acceleration, at least on par with my dear, departed Neon. Ride was pretty good as well; everything seemed decently damped.

Drove 800 miles round trip and averaged over 35 MPG, in spite of some sustained speeds of 75+ MPH.

Nice car.

As much as people hate on the CVTs and the Sentra in general, that CVT is a great feature of the car.

My Patriot's 2.4L is fairly noisy and droney under acceleration, but once up to cruising speed, it is a very quiet cruiser with the CVT.

Edited July 30, 201213 yr by ocnblu

I couldn't stand the CVT in the Caliber I drove. Droned a lot and sucked all the power from the engine.

As has been mentioned in other threads, the Nissan CVT is pretty much best in class.

Didn't like it in the Sentra, drove it in another car and was impressed....

Yeah, the CVT in the Sentra behaved very nicely. Most of the time, it felt like an auto tranny with the torque convertor locked up to keep slippage & revs down. But if you needed a quick burst of power or started up a long hill, the revs would gradually climb until you reached that "just right" level of power. No jerkiness or weirdness that I could detect.

I drove both a Compass and a Caliber back in '07 and wasn't impressed--engines were noisy and the interior design was pretty awful in both. I sat in a newer Compass (probably an '11) and the interior was much improved (so was the exterior). Didn't drive it though so can't tell if that part had improved.

I'm afraid if my wife had driven the Sentra, we'd probably be looking to trade our "domestic" auto. The front end is starting to make noises AGAIN, just a year after we sunk $1600 into it...

Sorry to hear the Malibu Maxx is giving you issues.

If your going to buy a foreign car though....and don't want GM...take a look at the "Euro" Ford Focus.

Great build quality, domestic, and will run circles around a Sentra in terms of design and build quality. Not even on the same planet close...

And by Euro focus I mean the one ford just came out with. I am thinking seriously about an ST version for myself at some point...NEAT car.

Yeah, We will give the Focus a whirl. I'm old school enough that I'd rather not buy a Japanese or German brand.

I wish the Cruze weighed about 300-lbs less than it does; I'd like it a lot more. The engine feels pretty taxed to me, though the ride is pretty quiet.

All these decades and I've never actually owned a Ford. Took my driver's test in a '71 Mercury Marquis Brougham though (my granny's car; it was a beauty), and my dad had a nifty '64 Ford Galaxie convert for a number of years.Also had a '56 Mercury Montclair that was one of the prettiest cars ever, in my opinion.

I should add that we really love the Maxx, but that front end is giving me fits.

Edited July 30, 201213 yr by NeonLX

Maxx is a great car, sorry again your having problems.

LOVE the 64 Galaxy design, one of my fav. big fords!