The car they don't want you to drive: 10 years of Nissan Almera N16

[ProgRocker]

Well, I hadn't expected to own this car for over a decade, especially as it was never was the best car that I owned.

Having chickened out on a £5k 05 reg Toyota Corolla 1.6 VVTi a couple of weeks earlier, I bought the Almera 2.2 dCi SXE from Norfolk Motor Group: a franchised Kia / Suzuki / Great Wall dealership, in September 2010. The sticker price was £3999. Cheapest car they had on their used forecourt. I traded in my 152,000 mile 1994 Escort 1.8 L diesel saloon for it. Was in between jobs at that moment. Fearing that I was perhaps going to end up working a fair distance away home and my amazement at the excellent fuel economy of the clattery ex-Plod Escort, I decided that diesel was a good option. The car looked alright and ran OK. I was blindsided by the bells and whistles it had, like climate control and a six speed gearbox. Never had those before on a car! The Almera would be my 7th car. Insurance costs screwed me over a bit early on in my driving career: the first 5 cars I owned were either 998cc A series engined or various 1.4 litre petrol engined car with no less than 78 bhp. Car number 6: the Escort being the largest engined car I had owned to date albeit with 60 bhp. Surely the Almera with it's 2.2 diesel engine and 136 bhp engine was going to be as exciting* as a Golf GTi to drive?! And I was 33 years old by this point.

Test drove it on my own, deal done. £250 part ex, so I got my money back on that. Lost out on 3  week's worth of VED. Perhaps I should have waited until 1st October but I was excited to get my car and the salesman wanted his commission before the month was out. Bah! Lesson learned. However, the VED on the Escort was about a week from expiring.

So the Almera had 66,007 miles and a full service history and was MOT'd until July 2011. Registered on 18th December 2003. Despite the NC reg indicating it was registered in Newcastle, it appeared to spend it's first few years in Hertfordshire before moving to north Norfolk a few years later. On the number plate is a sticker for 'Crayford and Abbs' which is a small Nissan dealer in the seaside market town/village of Mundesley. Here it is parked up in Cromer in 2011:

I ended up not using it much at all as I secured employment within a 10 minute walk from my digs.  I found the front LCD display screen rather distracting at first. Being top of the range, in the centre console there is an array of flat buttons which tripled up as heater controls, stereo controls and even inbuilt sat nav controls. I still find adjusting the heater/demist controls while driving very distracting. I prefer a tactile knob or two (fnarr fnarr). At least the stereo and trip computer controls are on the leather steering wheel.

I became more aware of the whistling noise from the turbo, which seems to be a feature of older VAG motors. Was that like that when it was still at the dealer's? Couldn't remember. I put up with it. However, I had more (de)pressing issues. In late 2011 the clutch began playing up badly. Nursed the car back home in 3rd gear and got a recovery company to pick it up and investigate. One phone call later asking how I wish to proceed, I opted for a non genuine Nissan clutch plate at £350 over the £500 genuine one. Add into the mix the £50 recovery fee, parts and labour, repairing it came to nearly £1200!! I paid for it with a credit card, which was initially declined however, by some stroke of luck it was accepted on another credit card. Turned out the first credit card I used had a limit of £1,000! Given that it had a rear tow bar, I started to realise that the N16 has had a tough life in it's first few years!

I ended up getting a much better job over the other side of the city. This is where the Almera started to shine. I'd use the A47 Norwich Southern Bypass to get there most days. It was and is an excellent A road cruiser. Before the job I was putting around 2000 to 3000 miles on the clock but between 2012 and 2015 I was travelling 7000 miles a year. Here it is in 2013, parked in a very tight designated space.

In early 2014 I spent around £560 on sorting the brakes. I'm no mechanic (you probably knew that regarding my tale with the clutch!) but the brakes just didn't feel great. I was happly to spend the money getting them sorted. It happily passed it's 2011, 2012 and 2013 MOTs. Failed in June/July 2014: the infamous weak point on N16s  a rusty front crossmember. Got the main dealer to source and fit it, retested and it passed. The following year I decided to really splash out and buy a new turbo to get rid of that irritating whistling noise. That cost £1300, had it done at a tuning place. It was at this point I really started to resent spending money on the car. The 1999 SEAT Ibiza 1.4 I had previously owned for over 7 years was almost problem free. But, eh? I wanted a powerful car. Maybe I should have bought that 2005 Corolla?! By this point I had moved closer to work so mileage was down to 2000-3000 a year.

It was after this point that it really started to bother me how heavy the steering felt. The wheels wore 195/55/16 Cooper summer tyres. Seems like I have a history of picking cars with heavy steering as car number 3: the unassisted 1990 Fiat Tempra 1.4 was a bugger to park and even the PAS equipped SEAT Ibiza felt heavy (wide 14 inch wheels). In comparison the 1994 Escort diesel with optional PAS on 13 inch wheels was as light as a feather to steer. In September 2017 I had the track rod ends sorted by the main stealer who sold me the car 7 years earlier (on top of a full service). I felt that it made little difference to the steering.

To date I haven't had to change the exhaust or any of the front light bulbs, surprisingly. Last serviced back in November 2020 where I was warned about the [typing this from the service invoice] exhaust flexi pipe starting to corrode/various hangers; exhaust heat shield mounting points corroding so it looks like the exhaust is at the end of it's shelf life. The garage that serviced it also warned me about the battery, 2 x aux. belts, anti-roll bar bushes slightly deteriorating and slight squeak noted from front end on road test. At the age of 17 years, perhaps it's time to move the car on?

As of today, the Almera N16 is on 105,400 miles, so I have done around 39,400 miles in 10 years and 4 months.

 

[loserone]

I'm pleased you've enjoyed it, but I can't help but think you could have run an RX8 or 944 for that money and mileage.

 

My N16 was similarly expensive to run, 50k over three years.  My least favourite car so far.

[DSdriver]

Providing the car is rust free, spend the money on the consumables and keep it. Because  whatever you replace it with could be great or could be a dog.

 

[New POD]

Those advisories? Pah meh etc. Barely run in. 

[Isaac Hunt]

Looks really tidy.  If you add those bills up, inc the purchase price of the car, divide by 9, that is not bad per year.  

A few PCP deals at £200 a month over 9 years would be nearly £22k.  I know you get 3 to 4 years of new/nearly new cars, but it is still £22k

Clutch is good, brakes are good, engine is good, probs got loads of life in it still.  

I drive a few cars.  One is really cosmetically tatty with mega paint peel all down one side (previous paint repair before we had the car, I think the wob in the rear quarter might be substantial) but TBH I enjoy the drive in it as much as some of our more modern stuff.   The dateless Reg on the car is worth more than the car itself and i’m long past worrying what folk might think.

You could replace it with something different, want and need often differ, and you might still end up with a big bill.

Looks like you have enjoyed the car and there is no reason not to continue to do so.  You could probably get a full custom stainless exhaust made up for that if aftermarket/dealer systems turn out to G.E. expensive, rarity etc.

 

 

[ProgRocker]

2 hours ago, loserone said:

I'm pleased you've enjoyed it, but I can't help but think you could have run an RX8 or 944 for that money and mileage.

Those cars sound like fun. Considered a Hyundai Coupé as a wildcard alternative. 

[Markeh]

We had one of these for a bit when I was a child - my dad worked for a Nissan main dealer when they were new, and after someone borrowed and wrote off his usual Primera, he ended up with an 04 (diesel SE I think - no nav but colour screen) in that mid grey they often seem to be in. Think he had it for a couple of months until the next plate change, I forget which order he had them in but he either had an X-Trail or a Murano after that.

[Nails1979]

I remember when we first started building these at the factory and I had a N15 GTI and I just couldn't get away with the looks of them. 

We had lots of meetings over the years saying that we needed to be more competitive and this is what they came up with. It was also the point where Nissan started using other manufacturers for parts which made our jobs at lot harder as they were shite, didn't fit properly, parts mixed up in the boxes, bits missing etc.  

I did think the P12 looked good at the time but no else did. 

[barrett]

Your mileage over 10 years is about 18 months of driving for me, and I've never spent that much money to keep a car going... I'm not sure if I'm impressed or appalled

[horriblemercedes]

10 minutes ago, barrett said:

Your mileage over 10 years is about 18 months of driving for me, and I've never spent that much money to keep a car going... I'm not sure if I'm impressed or appalled

I had the same thought!

 

Still, nice to see it in this condition. I was thinking the other day that you never see these any more and since then I've seen them on every trip. I realised I just stopped noticing them.

I think that most are probably petrol though - they're probably the real cockroaches in the Almera world. I didn't know about the crossmember rust problem - not great that a 21st century car failed an MOT at 10/11 years old on a rusty crossmember. Cheap and easy, I hope?

[ProgRocker]

2 hours ago, Nails1979 said:

I remember when we first started building these at the factory and I had a N15 GTI and I just couldn't get away with the looks of them. 

The N15 had a small boot and a spacious rear seat whereas the N16 managed the reverse situation.  An ex manager had an R reg N15 GTI (2 decades ago), which I really liked. 

1 hour ago, barrett said:

Your mileage over 10 years is about 18 months of driving for me, and I've never spent that much money to keep a car going... I'm not sure if I'm impressed or appalled

It was a shock compared to 7.5 years ownership of my 1999 Ibiza. Probably spent £6-7k on it. Most of that chunk was spent in the first 5 years of ownership. It hasn't drained my bank balance so much in the last 4 or so years despite greater wear and tear. 

[GrumpiusMaximus]

I've spent £2.3K or so on my car for mechanical work over the last four and a half years.  Why?  Because I really like it and it suits me.  I've done 100K or so in it, mind - so I'd still consider it cheap motoring.

Sometimes you bond with a car and it's what you want.  Nothing wrong with that.

Mind you, I wouldn't mind getting a remap to 180BHP...

[ProgRocker]

1 hour ago, horriblemercedes said:

Didn't know about the crossmember rust problem - not great that a 21st century car failed an MOT at 10/11 years old on a rusty crossmember. Cheap and easy, I hope?

Had to look at the invoice. About £70 from the main stealer + I got them to fit it at the same time as getting it serviced. Looks like they charged me £200 to fit it. Yikes. 

[loserone]

31 minutes ago, ProgRocker said:

Looks like they charged me £200 to fit it. Yikes. 

Good value.  Nissan tried to charge me £1700 to supply and fit on a car two days out of warranty..