Hello house,
I intend to buy nissan primera 2001,how good is this car?my last. Car was honda buldog.is nissan primera reliable in term of fuel. And maintainace.(Hanks

You have to be specific on which nissan primera u ard talking abt, is it the p11 or p11-144 or the p12, if u are not conversant wit these models, kindly visit google.com for more details. Ciao

The 2001 model should be a P11-144. I made a similar post sometimes. I quoted it below:

oluwaseunla:
Op, buying a car is about personal preference. If you are buying any of the two, the kind of person you are, maintainace wise, will determine how long the cars will last.

Me thinks the P11-144 comes with more whistle and bells. But note that if you are getting auto trans, it has a CVT and can be serviced with only the NS1 CVT fluid, which doesn't come cheap. But then I guess the trans oil for the golf won't come cheap in our environment either. If you are getting the sports trim, the CVT comes with a tiptronic.

Two things I particularly love about the P11-144 is the climatic control of the air conditioning, and you can do on-board diagnostics of error codes, without having to get an obd scanner. I love those perks.

In comparison with the golf, the primera is bigger in size, so it depends on what you want to use the car for. Don't know if the golf has timing belt, but the Primera is chain driven, which means you shouldn't mess with oil and filter change; the plus side is, if well maintained, you shouldn't be bothering your head with timing chain change either.

If you want to get the Primera, you have 3 engine sizes to pick from: 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0. Generally, they spit out a respectable horsepower for their engine size. (At least I'll pick the Primera 2.0 over the 97-01, 4 cylinder Camry any day, any time). Again, your preference matters here.

If you treat them well, they will serve you. But let me warn you, Primeras don't do too well with abuse. Note also that the sports trim has stiffer suspensions. You won't enjoy a ride in them on bad roads. It will be a really harsh ride. So if the roads around you is bad, stay away from the sports trim, except you don't mind harsh rides.

If you are buying from here, be careful. Many are converted from RHD to LHD. The people I know that are using it, all pre-ordered from Germany. But then the price goes up a bit. Before this naira devaluation, 900k-1M should get you a full optioned one on pre-order and you won't spend a dime for like another two years, save for servicing and fueling (all things being equal).

Lastly if you are going for the Primera, I'll advise you join the Nissan Primera Owner's club in U.K. You'll get help with whatever issues your Primera has. You can even source for parts from there if you are a paying member. A warning here too- most of them know almost nothing about the CVT, because they mostly drive the manual trans. There is another Primera forum in New Zealand. I think those ones know a bit more about the CVT.

There is a lot to type about the Primera, but I guess this will do. Hoping a golf owner will come along and give us a review.

Let me just add the following:

I know someone using the 2.0 litre (SR20DE) SE+ trim. Highway fuel consumption is like 8.5 litres/100km. She used like 14 litres of fuel to travel from Oyo town to Lagos (roughly 180km), with air condition. So I feel fuel consumption is fair.

Getting some parts may be a bit tricky in this environment, considering that it is an European car. But then, you may just order online. I'm not familiar with the popular Ladipo market, but I have a friend who swears you can get all Primera parts there.

If you go for it, note that recommended oil is 10W-40. I'll advise you stick to that for optimum performance. In fact, just stick to OEM parts as much as you can.

Take care.