2009 Nissan Maxima Review

Introduction

What’s New – The 2009 Nissan Maxima is billed as a return to the car’s roots as the Four-Door Sports Car. With a more powerful engine, smaller dimensions and a sport-tuned suspension, the Maxima is designed to appeal to those who want more performance and luxury than they can get in the company’s Altima sedan.

Competes With: Acura TL, Infiniti G35

What We Think – While Nissan has certainly upped the performance and visual punch of the Maxima, it still falls short of the company’s “four-door sports car” goal. It’s good, but doesn’t inspire us like the Maxima from the early 1990s did. With the company’s own Infiniti G35 sedan offering just as much luxury in a better-handling package for comparable money, we wonder if the Maxima has outlived its place in Nissan’s lineup.

Nissan Maxima – 2009 Review: Calling a sedan a sports car is a bold move. After all, sports cars are usually everything a sedan isn’t: Small, lightweight, nimble, quick and fun. Sedans are big, heavy, ponderous, sluggish and boring, or so the conventional wisdom goes.

Yet 20 years ago, Nissan unveiled a Maxima that it called the Four-Door Sports Car, even going as far as putting “4DSC” decals on the window of each car. The funny thing is, that 1989 Maxima mostly lived up to the billing, with a willingness to be driven hard that was unusual in a sedan. However, over the years and with succeeding generations, the Maxima gained weight, lost performance, and strayed far from that mark. On top of it all, the Maxima’s smaller sibling, the Altima, is a capable and sporty sedan in its own right. These days, one has to wonder exactly what the Maxima stands for.

For 2009, Nissan says it’s reintroducing that 4DSC concept with the 2009 Nissan Maxima. More than just a near-luxury sedan, or a nicely outfitted family car, the newest Maxima is billed as a return to the car’s sporty roots. It’s smaller than the previous generation, has more power, a stiffer suspension, and Nissan is trying hard to infuse it with the 4DSC genetics of yore.

Yet things have changed significantly since 1989, and we’re not sure the Maxima, even in its newest form, has kept up. It’s a nice car, aggressive and with some unique styling elements, but the suspension’s firmness doesn’t quite translate to the kind of handling we’d expect. The engine is powerful, but mated to a continuously-variable transmission that is a poor match. The interior is luxurious, but at roughly the same price as an Infiniti G35 sedan, it doesn’t offer much value over that luxury brand.

The 2009 Maxima is definitely an improvement over the previous generation car, with plenty of features, good (but not great) handling, and a good (but not great) drivetrain. However, it’s not the four-door sports car we were hoping for.