My dearly departed 1996 Nissan Maxima GLE-

The car that started it all for me!

THIS CAR IS SOLD!

As of the date of the sale of the vehicle I was pretty much finished with all refurbishments and upgrades.

The first thing that I did to the Max was to upgrade it to 1998 Maxima SE rims and 225-50-ZR16 Sumitomo HTR+ tires. I intended for this to be permanent, but now my car looked like every other Beige Maxima. So I decided that I wanted to paint the rims Gunmetal.

In the end, I bought my wife some Gunmetal rims for her Cavalier, so I stuck with the SE rims. See her CarDomain page (CaraH81) for what her rims look like. We sold the Cavalier shortly thereafter and bought her a new 2003 Toyota Celica GT. The only mods on that so far are a K&N filter, Motegi MR7 rims, and an antenna from an S2000. Check out her page for updates.

After working for a while, I saved up some money and sold some extra car stereo equipment. After having nice systems in my past cars, the stock Bose stereo was not enough, so I added a Rockford Fosgate amp and an 8-inch Infinity Kappa sub. The amp was too much for the sub, and my wife's small 4-channel amp was not enough for her 12-inch RF XLC sub, so we switched them. After ths swap, both vehicles sounded better. Around this time I also added an Addco Rear Sway Bar.

My next project was a major tune-up, followed by adding clear corner lights, Philips SilverStar headlight bulbs, and a Front Strut Tower Bar (FSTB).

My Maxima still looked like any other tan Maxima, so I was poking around looking for rims when I stumbled upon a set of used Mille Miglia MM-11 Plus rims at a great price. I sold yet ANOTHER amp and snatched them up.

Toward the end, my OEM suspension was dying so I was looking to use some OEM replacement parts and some aftermarket upgrades. I had purchased an Eibach Pro-Kit but never installed it. Instead I decided to sell it and purchase a set of H&R springs. I also picked up a set of Tokico HP struts, and in April of 2003 I met up with a bunch of other Maxima enthusiasts off of the www.maxima.org forum section (D.C. Maximas) and we did several suspension installs in one day. I learned a lot about my vehicle and its componentry that day. I also replaced my warped OEM rotors while doing the suspension install, replacing the OEM pads with Bendix Titanium Metallic Pads. Stopping distance was greatly improved, as was pedal feel.

I had also added a 4-channel RF amp to replace my 2-channel model. A set of Infinity Kappa 6.5" components for the front doors never made it into the car, so I sold them. I had created custom mounts in the A-pillars, btu I never installed the mids or powered the system up.

Last on my recent developments was a set of PIAA Ion Yellow H3 bulbs for my foglights. They put out a nice yellow light (though not as deep as the foglights found on Lexus vehicles) that is fairly bright and well-focused. My wife says that they are obnoxiously bright, but they are good enough to be of real benefit in some recent fog and bad weather so I stuck with them.

As for the Interior, I hated the cupholder section of my 96 center console, so I scrounged up a console from a 1997 Maxima. The cupholder design is much more user-friendly, and has enough space for 2 much larger drinks. The only problem was that there was no changeholder in the 97 console. Solution: I removed two of the three changeholders from the 96 console and used the areas where the seat-heater switches are supposed to be. I used a Dremel tool and an Exacto knife to carve out an opening. Now I had the best features of both consoles: the cupholders from the 97 and the changeholders from the 96. On page 3 of the CarDomain page is an example of the modifications made. I ultimately did similar modifications to another console for the 97 I30.

I also added OEM SE White Face Gauges to my GLE...See the bright Orange Speedo Needle for visibility at a glance:

And here at night:

Actually, the lights are a very deep and even red, but it did not show up well because of my flash.

Pictorial History (Reverse Chronological):

Exterior immediately prior to sale:

New stance (left) versus old, (right):

Front and rear wheelgap on H&Rs and Tokico HP struts:

Here are some new pics after installing my new Mille Miglia MM-11 rims!

This is my car the day before I added Mille Miglia MM-11 Rims (Left) and my first shot after (Right):

Here is the pic of how the rim sits in the wheelwell with the New rims (Left) versus the Old (Right):

Note also the CLEAR CORNER LIGHTS...

This is what my car looked like on my wedding day:

Here is a pic of how I wanted it to look if I painted the 16" SE rims GUNMETAL:

Here are the front and rear views, when the car was still new to me:

My Car, a 1996 Nissan Maxima GLE, when new (to me):