Welcome to 2002 Nissan Altima Home Page!

This Web site features my car and general updates about what I am doing with the car, how it is performing and any modifications that I may make.

Owners Manual
If you would like to take a look at the 2002 Altima Owner's Manual, Click Here.
You will need Acrobat Reader which is a free download.

My Car
Hello! My Altima came into existance on September 5th, 2001. It was the 5952 2002 Altima to be built and came from Smyrna Tenn. Now that this new car was brought into the world, it needed a home.

My 2002 Altima arrived in Dallas on September 13th, 8 days after being built and was inspected and put on the lot at Bankston Nissan of Irving.

I brought the car home the evening of September 18th with 62 miles on the car. Brand new with plastic still on the floors. I have to tell you that I am very excited about this car!

Updates

Sunday, February 9th, 2003. It's a warm sunny day outside. CHANGED THE INCABIN MICRO-FILTER TODAY! That sucker was dirty! While at that, I decided to tackle the AUX switch option on the radio. I purchased an 8 pin DIN plug from radioshack ($2), a cool lighted push button switch from AutoZone ($10) that has a blue LED in it and 3M tape backing. I picked up a 6 foot length of RCA cables from Wal-Mart ($5) and used some red speaker wire for my 12V+ line. I put together the cable and mounted the switch in the glove box just above the trunk lock out switch. It fits there perfectly. I left the RCA cables dangling out of the top of the inside of the glove box. The switch is getting 12V+ power from the un-used wire harness behind the radio. It is switched power, and I figure it was originally intened for the Auxilary Audio Option anyways. Well, it works great and we have already watched the Matrix on my wife's laptop in the car. I recomend adding this to your car, but I would probably just purchase the cable from VirtualOutlook on Altimas.net if you don't have the patience to solder those TINY wires onto the DIN plug! It took me about 4 hours from unboxing the supplies to playing music in the car.

Thursday, February 6th, 2003. I went to pick up the car and it has 17,620 miles on it. I think this is a fair milage to check out the steering. I don't think they really checked out my clutch problem though. The steering is tighter and the clunk is gone now. However, there is a small knocking sound in the dash, kind of like a cable is dangling down somewhere. Also, when I picked up the car, there was grease on my drivers seat. I asked them to clean it off, and they removed most of it, but it still stained my blonde leather. I spoke with the service manager, and another woman and they said they could try dyeing the seat. If that didn't work, they would have to replace the front seat. I feel that dying the seat is totally unacceptable. I will have to make another apointment to leave my car with people that don't want to address my problems.

Tuesday, February 4th, 2003. I took the car into the dealer today with 17,616 miles on the odometer. I was having a few problems I wanted to have fixed under waranty. The problems I reported were:
1. I have the popular clutch howl and showed them the TSB
2. My clutch pedal offers no resistance in the mornings and after work. I am pretty certain it's air in the lines.
3. Audio static in radio from alternator on weak FM stations. Showed them TSB
4. Gurgle in heater core. Brought in TSB
5. Groan in front right when coming to stop from very slow speed.
6. Clunk in steering when moving steering wheel back and forth.

I call Bankston Nissan of Irving later that day and they tell me that they couldn't "duplicate" any of my problems except the clunk in steering. He said to come get a rental because it is going to take them 3 days to replace my Rack and Pinion!

Saturday, April 13th, 2002. I got a wild hair to debadge the back of my car. I like it and think it really makes for a clean look. I removed everything except the large round Nissan logo. I'm not sure if I am going to remove that or not. I used a hair dryer and a credit type card (actually a rechargable credit card from an arcade). Then to get the left over goo off the paint, I used mothers Aluminum and Mag wheel polish. I swear by this stuff as a cleaner for anything. It's non abrasive, and will draw the impurities out of anything!

Monday, March 4th, 2002. Today I removed the large resonator in the fender well that I had origionally taped over. I think the engine is getting a slight bit more cold air. To read about my free WAI modification, Click here.

Tuesday, February 12th, 2002. I was asked to take some measurements of the Trunk compartment by another member on Altimas.net. If you would like to see the pictures as well, click here.

Sunday, January 20th, 2002. After some discussion on what an un-used jack is on the back of the non-Bose radio is, I decided to see if the Bose unit had this un-used 8 pin DIN jack on the back of it as well. To see what I found out, CLICK HERE.

Friday, January 11th, 2002. Boredom has driven me to madness. Today I tore apart my new Altima! Check it out by CLICKING HERE!!

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2002. Happy New Years. Had the second COLD meeting out at the Mall. Could not stand out side because it was 28 degrees and dropping. Didn't do much on the car, EXCEPT find out that my car has the wiring harness for the heated mirrors. Seems that the leather package comes with that wiring harness. I am thinking that it is the harness to accomodate the Automatic A/C. Well, the Blue/Yellow wire is the power feed for the heated mirrors. It comes off of the rear defroster, so when Rear Defrosting, your mirrors will defrost as well. Personally I cannot remember frosty mirrors, but it's all about the Options, baby!!! I'll get to more info on how much those mirrors are going to cost and will post pics if I do a swap!
As for the seats, I don't believe they have a heating element in them, but according to the manual, the driver seat should have a 16 pin plug with the gray/red and green/yellow wires powering the heating elements and the passenger seat should have a 18 pin plug with the gray/black and gray/yellow wires powering the heat. I'm going to have to pull the console and find out if I have those wires. More to come!

Wednesday, December 26th, 2001. First COLD meeting out at the Grapevine Mills Mall. A lot of people showed up to this one, including a 240SX with a tasty SR20DET engine swap, running newly installed turbo. ANYWAYS... Got to looking at my engine and made a factory intake tweek. We are talking about a FREE Warm Air Intake!! Check out my WAI modification here.

Monday, December 10th, 2001. Time to get the oil changed. My Odometer is at 3863 and so today I took it to the dealer. I had purchased Mobil 1 fully synthetic 5W30 oil and an oil filter from Bankston Nissan, but because Bankston gave me the wrong filter and I had to go back to get the right one, they gave me a free oil change. I think this experience only made me feel that if you want something done the way you like, do it yourself.
My car holds a capacity of 4.25 quarts. I left 5 bottles of oil in the car and they were all gone when I picked it up. That oil ain't cheap, and I asked what happened to the rest of my bottle. My salesman said, "Maybe they flushed it through." Um... yeah. I worked at a Lube Shop before and NO WAY! Also, when checking under the hood, I could see that they spilled oil all over my plastic engine cover and then wiped it up because it had a large greasy mark. So.... next time I'll be pulling out the jack stands and doing it myself!
I do have the feeling that the car is running smoother though. Perhaps it is all mental, but the car seems happier!!!

Wednesday, November 21st, 2001. I got the windows tinted! I really like it. I went with Llumar Centaur metalic tint that has a life time warranty to the original owner of the car. According to Llumar, "LLumar Centaur is the best film you can put on your car. Lifetime warranty Centaur is made from a high-tech blend of corrosion resistant alloy -- the same alloy used to strengthen steel. Designed for durability, Centaur is a step ahead of the titanium metal technology previously used in automotive window film.
The side windows are PT38GH (49% heat blockage) and the back window is PT18GH (59% heat blockage) . To see pictures, click here. The car was tinted by Blair's Texas' Window Tinting. They have a very helpful website and Blair is willing to tell you more than you ever would want to know about tint! Check it out if you have questions.

Monday, November 19th, 2001. At gas station and a guy from across the lot is pointing at me and saying thumbs up. I honestly did the, "Who, me?" and looked around. He pointed again and more thumbs up. He then finished pumping his gas and got in his 95ish Red Mustang GT Coupe and drove over. He said, "That is an awesome looking car. I have seen the billboards and was blown away but I haven't seen one in person yet. It really looks like a Lexus. Do you like it?" I replied positively and told him that it is really quick. "How many horses does it have?" I told him about the 240HP V6 and he said, "Whoa, thats more than my car has. Lookin' sharp!" and then he drove off. I don't think I could have purchased a better car!!!

Some More Pictures!

More Pictures