2010 Nissan Altima coupe

I have recently been trying out this new little altima. I like this little car. It's sporty but still economical and has a good overall feel to it. I would not recommend it for a family or anyone who regularly takes more than one person with them for any distance greater than just going to lunch or something in town. However, it is what it is and that is to be expected from a sport coupe, right?

My favorite thing about this coupe is the looks. Underneath, it's basically the same car as the altima sedan but to me, it has so much more curb appeal. As I and my brother noted, it greatly resembles a Pontiac G6 coupe. Anyways, copycatting aside, it's a good looking, sporty little car.

The bad. The two funniest things to me that surprised me about it are the lack of rear seat room and the laughably small trunk. Approaching the car for the first time, I totally expected that it would have the same rear seat as the 4 door model, just without the extra doors and with smaller, more sporty windows in the rear. However, this is not the case. Kelsey and I gave a a 7 year old little girl a ride home from school in the back seat and with the front passenger seat most of the way back, there was barely room for the little one's legs. There is absolutely no way that 4 adults could comfortably ride in this car for very long. Next, I checked out the trunk, thinking that maybe 2 adults would fit better in there, hahahaha! I mean, if they made the back seat so much smaller, the extra room should go to cargo storage, right? Nope. I would say that one would be hard pressed to fit 2 regular size suitcases in the trunk on this car. I'm not blowing smoke or pulling your chain, from the bottom to the top of the trunk, it is only between 10 and 15 inches, depending upon which part of the trunk you measure. Folks, I have driven a lot of cars over the years, and I think this has the worst trunk space I have ever experienced. Keep in mind that I have a miata which rates pretty low in this category but I honestly think that the altima, for it's class, is worse than even that. The other feature that I really discourage on this Altima is the remote only starting/stopping/locking, etc. This is common on Nissan products and I have to admit that I do like the ability to get in and out of the car without having to pull anything out of my pockets. However, I do not like it for this reason...if you leave the remote in the car...that means, in the dash, on the seat, floor, etc....and you get out and close your door, there is a good chance that you can accidentally hit the little rubber button on the door and lock it with the remote inside. Now, you would think that if it locked, it should unlock, right? Wrong...not always. I personally witnessed a man do this and guess what, a locksmith had to come out and slim jim the car open because the car was running, locked, with the remote in the dash holder and the doors/trunk would not open. (I assume it did this to prevent car jacking but it also can cause issues as was this case. ) I whined and moaned about this same feature with the maxima too. I believe it can also be a safety issue as well but I digress. So I leave you with this, when did we get so lazy that we couldn't just stick a metal key in and out of the door and ignition?

Now that the bad stuff is out of the way, let me talk about what I like about the altima coupe besides the styling. The seats are pretty comfortable. It has large front bucket seats and I've always liked Nissan's really soft style upholstery. The gauges are well laid out in front of the wheel and very easy to read. Even for a small car like this, it has ample cupholders...two in the middle, one in each door, and even one on each side of the rear seat. Overall, for a smaller car, it has a good ride on the highway. The suspension feels taut and holds together well over just about any road conditions including rocky, gravel drives. It does have a little more road noise on rough highway sections but after all, this is not a large family sedan! Anyone who is buying a car for regular highway travel, probably wouldn't be looking for a sporty little coupe anyway....that's what the taurus is for!! Surprisingly, the 2.5 liter 4 cylinder has plenty of power to get you moving and I must say that in regards to power and acceleration, it ranks easily among the top two or three 4 bangers that I have driven....ever. I believe it has 175hp which is good for one of these but the key is that it uses them very well and feels more powerful than one would expect. Originally, I was shocked that it didn't have a V6 but after driving this car 1,000 miles, I can honestly say that, given the choice, I would gladly buy the 4 cylinder. Also surprising is how smoothly it runs for such a little powerplant; it doesn't have nearly as much of the buzzy feeling that most of them do. Economically speaking, I think it is a star performer as well. I averaged 31mpg on the highway and about 20 in the city. Perhaps the most impressive feature of all to me, is the fact that this little car has a 20 gallon gas tank. That means you have a highway cruising range of about 600 miles....extremely rare in smaller cars. Most cars of this class and lower have between a 12-16 gallon tank, at best. This may not matter to most people who do mostly city driving but to highway dwellers, it's a big deal. Here again, not the car most would be looking at for highway purposes but nevertheless, a good feature to have. Consequently, I think this larger fuel tank has a direct link to the reason the trunk is so small...hmmm. As for the tranny, Nissan put their CVT (continuously variable transmission) in this. It is smooth, of course, because it doesn't shift. You really don't notice much difference unless you are thinking about it and pay attention to such things. I'm sure the average Joe would probably not even realize anything is different about how the car runs and accelerates. For that matter, the average Joe these days probably doesn't even know his car has a transmission!!

Overall, the altima coupe is a nice ride and a fun car to drive. Although not my highway car dream, taking it out on the open road this week was a pleasant, economical experience. The sticker price on these is close to $25k which seems overpriced to me when compared to other cars in the same class. However, it's quite an accomplishment for a car to appear sporty, drive sporty, and still be a gas saver like this when all is said and done. Nissan accomplishes that with this car so perhaps if this is what you're in the market for, it would be worth paying a little bit of a premium for.