2009 Nissan Altima 3.5 Se on 2040-cars

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Nissan owners complain to feds about rusting floors

"You can feel it's soft right here," Jeff Talman told KSHB. "Right under his driver and passenger seats, the floorboards were rusting from the inside out," a KSHB reporter said. "This is a seven-inch area where it's actually rotted up here," Talman said. That was Jeff Talman, just one of many who have had issues with rusting floorboards in Nissan Altimas. KSHB reported the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received more than 400 complains about rust issues in 2002-2006 models. NBC highlighted a Chicago woman's 2005 car, which had rusted so much the floorboards were actually crumbling. "The hole was big enough to fit her foot through," NBC reporter Tom Costello said. "I'm not Fred Flintstone. This is not a good thing," Marie DeMaria said. While NBC reports snow and road salt could account for rust damage in some vehicles, that's probably not the cause in places that don't get snow and ice. And complaints are coming in from all over the country. Both Toyota and Ford have recalled hundreds of thousands of vehicles in the past few years because rusting underbody parts made the vehicles fall apart. Despite the number of complaints, Nissan isn't recalling the Altima vehicle models in question. "It's not a safety recall problem that's going to cause immediate death and injury if you have a hole in the floor. As a result of that, what we've seen is that Nissan has been able to get away with this problem," auto safety expert Sean Kane told WBZ-TV. KSHB reports the age of the cars is another way Nissan is able to avoid covering cost to fix them. "Once it's out of the warranty period, obviously they don't have any legal obligation. It becomes more of a customer service issue of whether they want to deal with it or not," body shop owner Bill Eveland said. NBC did reach out to Nissan for comment, but the carmaker reiterated that both it and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration do not consider the rust problem to be a safety defect. This video includes an image from Getty Images.

Nissan GT-R LM Nismo pulls its way to Chi-town

We generally take it as a given that, as far as performance goes, rear-wheel drive is better than front. All-wheel drive can be better than either, in some cases, but you need power going to the wheels that aren't also handling the steering while leaving the others just tagging along for the ride. Right? Well Nissan is here to upend that notion with the new GT-R LM Nismo, presented here at the 2015 Chicago Auto Show. After supporting the DeltaWing project a couple of years ago and fielding its own ZEOD RC prototype last year, Nissan is returning to Le Mans this year with another oddball endurance racer. Only this time, it's going for gold, competing against the likes of Porsche, Audi and Toyota for the overall win in the top-tier LMP1 class. Tying this front-drive, 1,250-horsepower hybrid racing prototype to the all-wheel-drive GT-R may be tenuous, but we have to hand it to Nissan for shaking things up. In the process, Nissan has also confirmed the hot shoes who'll be tasked with manhandling this beast around the Circuit de la Sarthe (and the rest of the tracks on the 2015 FIA WEC calendar). Joining former Le Mans winner and longtime Ferrari test driver Marc Gene will be Super GT champion Tsuigio Matsuda as well as Harry Tincknell and Olivier Pla (both experienced from the largely Nissan-powered LMP2 field), Nissan factory driver Michael Krumm and GT Academy graduates Lucas Ordonez and Jann Mardenborough, both of whom have made their way into professional racing on the merit of their video gaming abilities. We'll be looking forward to watching them try to get the best out of this most innovative Datsun.

Mitsubishi and Renault-Nissan expand partnership, US will get new sedan

Mitsubishi and Renault-Nissan have just inked an alliance that might, hopefully, reverse the ailing fortunes of the Mitsubishi brand in the US market. The big chunk of news is that Mitsubishi will produce two Renualt-based models for sale in the US market, and that they'll be built at the Renault-Samsung factory in Busan, South Korea.
The plans call for a D-segment sedan to be followed by a C-segment offering. Based on the cars built at the Busan factory, that means Mitsubishi will be getting the SM5 and the SM3, a pair of handsome sedans that are based on Renault-Nissan's D and C platforms, respectively. These same platforms underpin a number of US market Nissans (not to mention a number of cars from Renault), namely the Pathfinder, Maxima, Quest and Murano for the D platform and the last-generation Rogue and Sentra for the C platform.
Besides the sedan production, Nissan and Mitsubishi will be expanding their joint-venture company, NMKV, which produces Kei cars for the Japanese market. A new, all-electric offering will be born from the partnership, likely based on a Kei car platform. The partnership between the three brands will also lead to increased sharing of technology, particularly relating to electric cars.