1.8L, QG18DE, 16V DOHC inline 4 cylinder (VVT), 115 HP, FWD, 5-speed manual

Term driven: 2017 – 2017

Full disclosure–this car belonged to my wife, was solely in her name, and was a part of the household since we both graduated in 2006. For a time I was daily driving the Mitsubishi while she had this Nissan, until I upgraded to the Mazda. She continued driving this Nissan for the entire period (around 9 years) that I drove the Mazda and until I purchased the Subaru BRZ. This 2006 Nissan Sentra accumulated around 120k miles in this 11 year period. No accidents, but it did survive a hailstorm, and was not garaged for its lifetime.

My wife and I made a decision. Since this car was a manual transmission, and I was unfamiliar with manual transmission, I decided to let my wife drive the brand new, shiny Subaru with all of 20 miles on the odometer since she had well over a decade of experience driving manual. In the meantime, I would drive her Nissan (which was a beater by this point) for around 2 weeks at which point we would switch back.

Naturally, my wife loved the Subaru… because it was an awesome little car. So two weeks pass and I decide to just let my wife keep the Subaru since she indicated she liked it. In the meantime, I also discovered that I hated her Nissan. I was going to begin personalizing it as I typically do–I even had an aftermarket intake lined up to replace the factory one in place. I ended up canceling this intake order and trading the car in for another used car with a manual transmission–I hated the car that much. The Nissan did start every time–it was reliable. That’s about all it had going for it.

I don’t remember exactly how long it lasted, but it wasn’t long. Maybe on the order of months? I ultimately traded the car in for $1k towards the purchase of a 2007 Mazda MX-5 with manual transmission.