Mid January 2020, we leased a 2019 Sentra. Previous model year - I know. Typical of a Nissan lease deal back then, little down, little monthly. The buyout on it was $9800. At the time, both of us were commuting into the office daily, so we never really planned on keeping it. Well the thing happened and my fiance was able to work from home permanently ... the job would have been full remote anyway in 2021 after 2 years of employment.
We didn't put many miles on the car in 2020. At the end of the year it only had 3500 miles on it. Last year, I ended up putting a lot of miles on it to go see my father in the hospital. We weren't really sure we were buying it, so I figured free miles at better fuel economy than anything I owned. Then our house flooded in August of 2021 so I sold the Subaru to get the equity out of that to move on to something a bit higher in elevation. Started driving the Sentra a lot more. Any time we take a longer trip we take the Sentra. When I had the Grandma Keith down for a few weeks to replace the engine, it was our only good vehicle.
It's not a great car for an enthusiast I'm sure - but i have grown to like the CVT. The seats aren't terrible. I don't mind the way the CVT works, especially in traffic. The Grandma Keith drives me nuts right at around 9-12 MPH because it will just constantly shift 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2. Fuel economy is baffling in this thing. I had a few trips where the computer was reading 52 MPG going out to my parents. Hand calculated it multiple times and I can consistently hit high 40s. That's more than my old Focus. Port injection. Rear drums with a cable operated parking brake. Not a bad commuter!
I was planning on paying cash for it by just getting a certified check from my bank. Unfortunately, due to some ... real estate issues ... I still own my old house. So we had to finance and I didn't quite feel comfortable dropping that much money out of my savings to buy a car. We didn't want to let it go because then we'd be left only with my Grandma Keith. F-350 is down with a head gasket, Jeep only turns right and has only rear brakes. Our credit is still great. The car itself is worth $19500 . 15000 miles. According to the bank. No issues getting a loan. Perfect.
However, dealing with the Nissan dealers is the hard part. We've been trying for 3 weeks. Finally did it last night. Dealer 1 straight up would not work with us. They were more than happy to process an early lease return and get us into another lease, but buying the lease was something they just were not too interested in dealing with. I'm a base model kinda guy and they didn't have any Versas on the lot so ...
We tried dealer 2. Dealer 2 was being a little better about it. They seemed to be entertaining the idea of doing it, but were being very difficult in getting us the paperwork. Im pretty sure they were trying to get us to fold and just turn the car in - again, they would buy it from Nissan for $9800 and drop it on the lot for $19500. There was an identical one to ours but with 30000 miles for sale at a dealer near my work for $22000 a few weeks ago.
I'm not sure what was so difficult about producing a purchase agreement and buyout paperwork. And transmitting it to the bank when they were asking.
Then it happened. "Well you know we work with 36 banks and can get you great financing, you should look into that". NOPE. That didn't sit well with me. I promptly exclaimed to him that I know that there are laws against that and that unless paperwork was produced , I'd be calling the state Attorney General's office and reporting their fraudulent behavior. Things changed and the paperwork was ready for pickup in 20 minutes. Once we got that, the rest of the process was easy.
Now that it's ours, it's getting the body filled with oil. Oil spray underneath as well. When spring rolls around I'll order $200 of trans fluid for it and OEM pan and cartridge filters for the trans. That seems to be the trick to avoid having the trans fall out by 50,000 miles.
We didn't put many miles on the car in 2020. At the end of the year it only had 3500 miles on it. Last year, I ended up putting a lot of miles on it to go see my father in the hospital. We weren't really sure we were buying it, so I figured free miles at better fuel economy than anything I owned. Then our house flooded in August of 2021 so I sold the Subaru to get the equity out of that to move on to something a bit higher in elevation. Started driving the Sentra a lot more. Any time we take a longer trip we take the Sentra. When I had the Grandma Keith down for a few weeks to replace the engine, it was our only good vehicle.
It's not a great car for an enthusiast I'm sure - but i have grown to like the CVT. The seats aren't terrible. I don't mind the way the CVT works, especially in traffic. The Grandma Keith drives me nuts right at around 9-12 MPH because it will just constantly shift 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2. Fuel economy is baffling in this thing. I had a few trips where the computer was reading 52 MPG going out to my parents. Hand calculated it multiple times and I can consistently hit high 40s. That's more than my old Focus. Port injection. Rear drums with a cable operated parking brake. Not a bad commuter!
I was planning on paying cash for it by just getting a certified check from my bank. Unfortunately, due to some ... real estate issues ... I still own my old house. So we had to finance and I didn't quite feel comfortable dropping that much money out of my savings to buy a car. We didn't want to let it go because then we'd be left only with my Grandma Keith. F-350 is down with a head gasket, Jeep only turns right and has only rear brakes. Our credit is still great. The car itself is worth $19500 . 15000 miles. According to the bank. No issues getting a loan. Perfect.
However, dealing with the Nissan dealers is the hard part. We've been trying for 3 weeks. Finally did it last night. Dealer 1 straight up would not work with us. They were more than happy to process an early lease return and get us into another lease, but buying the lease was something they just were not too interested in dealing with. I'm a base model kinda guy and they didn't have any Versas on the lot so ...
We tried dealer 2. Dealer 2 was being a little better about it. They seemed to be entertaining the idea of doing it, but were being very difficult in getting us the paperwork. Im pretty sure they were trying to get us to fold and just turn the car in - again, they would buy it from Nissan for $9800 and drop it on the lot for $19500. There was an identical one to ours but with 30000 miles for sale at a dealer near my work for $22000 a few weeks ago.
I'm not sure what was so difficult about producing a purchase agreement and buyout paperwork. And transmitting it to the bank when they were asking.
Then it happened. "Well you know we work with 36 banks and can get you great financing, you should look into that". NOPE. That didn't sit well with me. I promptly exclaimed to him that I know that there are laws against that and that unless paperwork was produced , I'd be calling the state Attorney General's office and reporting their fraudulent behavior. Things changed and the paperwork was ready for pickup in 20 minutes. Once we got that, the rest of the process was easy.
Now that it's ours, it's getting the body filled with oil. Oil spray underneath as well. When spring rolls around I'll order $200 of trans fluid for it and OEM pan and cartridge filters for the trans. That seems to be the trick to avoid having the trans fall out by 50,000 miles.