I recently took my 1995 Maxima SE 5 speed with 100,000 miles in for
inspection. It passed it for all normal things with flying colors.
However, the service guy at my garage, a friend, asked me to look at a
rust problem that greatly concerned him. There is a strut right under
the radiator going from side to side. Another strut tees into this one
and runs under the engine front to back of the car and supports the
front motor mount. Where the tee strut bolts to the cross radiator
strut there is a great deal of rust and corrosion that appears to make
the bolted connection questionable. If that connection gives way it is
likely that the tee strut would drop to the ground and possibly spear
into something. I doubt the engine would drop because the other mounts
would hold it, but it could be a dangerous and ultimately terminal
problem for a car that is otherwise in perfect shape.

My service guy has checked around and he found that a body shop he
deals with has replaced this cross strut on a number of Maximas and
Infinitis that have not passed inspection because of the problem. He
said this is an $1800 repair, which seems to be more than 50% of the
car's value.

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this problem and has any words
of wisdom in solving it. It seems to me that Nissan has used very poor
paint/coatings on these frame members to allow them to corrode so much
in 10 years or so. The rest of the car's underside has a few areas of
surface rust, but nothing like the deterioration in this spot. I have
all of the usual questions about whether or not to put that much money
into a low value car, but I will have to work those out for myself. I
would be interested to hear if others seem to have the same problem.
You may have to remove one or both of the plastic splash panels to get
a good look at the area in question.

Thanks for any help or advice you may have.

WD wrote:
I have heard about the rust that you mention in at least 2-3 other
maximas. The bar that runs under the radiator is called the lower
radiator support and the bar running under the engine is the
cross-member.

I have seen several different repairs done for this - including just
welding in a steel plate over the rusted area, as well as having a body
shop cut out and weld in a new radiator support. The cross member can
be replaced entirely - it just bolts on up front and back.

1800 seems like a lot of this repair - I would price some other body
shops.

Nirav