Looking to purchase Nissan Wingroad. Any thoughts/experience with it?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Looking to purchase Nissan Wingroad. Any thoughts/experience with it?

maoriboy

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#319047 17-Mar-2025 13:32

Hey hive mind. Am looking at purchasing a 2012 Nissan Wingroad for my son as a first car. This is the vehicle below.

https://www.carjam.co.nz/car/?plate=Gps888

Looking to buy it off a family friend and wondering if anyone has any experience with these vehicles? I can see it runs on 91 and is chain cam (from what I've found online). Body is in good nick and has been driven by an old lady for most of its life.

Thoughts? Things to look out for? Have service records and has had oil etc changed regularly.

She's looking for around $4000, which is for comparable to what I've found on Trademe.

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#3354597 17-Mar-2025 13:40

Miss our old '08, very reliable and versatile.

We replaced ours because the CVT was coming to end of life, and ended up being not worth it for the rest of the potential lifespan of the vehicle.

Handsomedan

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#3354598 17-Mar-2025 13:49

We don't have a Wingroad, but the hatch version - a Tiida.

It's been a workhorse for my wife and the family for a good amount of years now and runs on the sniff of an oily rag.

Minimal servicing costs, almost zero repair costs and to be honest, it's a good little car, without being exciting or quite frankly, interesting.

We don't get the car serviced anywhere near as regulalry as we should but it breezes through WOFs and runs and runs and runs.

Bodywork is thin as paper though. And bumpers are held on with spit. You see a lot of these and Tiida's with bumpers taped on. We had ours repaired a few years ago after someone backed into it and the panelbeater beefed up the connecting clips and it's been good ever since.

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xpd

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#3354608 17-Mar-2025 14:50

We had a 04 model, loved it.

A few weeks ago we purchased a 2015 model for myself my daughter to use shared (she has her band gear to lug around), still has the same feel as the 04 :) I'm not a fan of CVT, but it is what it is.

Fantastic turning circle, sensible engine, basic layout.

Easy to get parts being a Nissan, and to work on for a mechanic.

We ran our 04 on 95+ and same with this one. Put 91 in the 04, and it started being very noisy. Keep in mind that Japan tends to use 95+ only, so imports seals are "use" to the higher grade, put lower grade and can cause issues. But if has been on 94 for quite some time, its obviously had seals redone etc, so should be reliable for some time to come :)

XPD / Gavin

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Mattnzl

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#3354609 17-Mar-2025 15:00

I randomly got one as a rental over expensive xmas/NY period 3 months ago to go from Chch over to West coast, tour round and back to Chch again.

Perfectly acceptable appliance car with a much better boot size than many suvs. I was astounded when I did the first fill up after 400km - 21 liters. That's like 5.2ish l/100km for an older non-hybrid basic car, and that included going over the pass, plus a bit of shingle road stuff.

Can't speak for longevity, but this one had done over 150k kms and drove fine for what it is.

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#3354617 17-Mar-2025 15:05

Just noticed the one you're looking at has the 1.8L engine. Ours always been the 1.5. Shouldn't be much different tho except a bit more go to it :)

XPD / Gavin

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SATTV

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#3354629 17-Mar-2025 16:08

We had a Wingroad, 08 if I recall, we got rid of it as we had to replace the timing chain and it was really expensive.

The chains have a habbit of stretching and the idler wheel can stick, when you replace the chain there is a bunch of other stuff that should be changed. It was about $3500 to do properly.

Other than that we had one coil go and that was about it for five years.

I know enough to be dangerous

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tweake

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#3354640 17-Mar-2025 17:26

it may depend on year but i think they are the ones that have a foot handbrake, which is in the same place as a clutch pedal. really bad for someone who drives a manual. the one i drove handled badly.

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#3354643 17-Mar-2025 17:31

Our 2015 has the foot brake. Not owned a manual for years, so been no issue.

XPD / Gavin

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SATTV

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#3354654 17-Mar-2025 18:43

I miss the clutch. I love driving manual.

I know enough to be dangerous

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#3354655 17-Mar-2025 18:46

SATTV:

I miss the clutch. I love driving manual.

Ditto.... soon as I win Lotto, I'm off for a classic 90's JDM manual :)

XPD / Gavin

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dpf81nz

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#3354674 17-Mar-2025 20:23

I had an '06 Wingroad for many years (1.5L model, standard auto not a CVT). It was cheap to run, very reliable, decent amount of storage space. I dont recall having any issues with it apart from normal wear and tear

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Goosey

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#3354723 18-Mar-2025 07:06

My two cents…any car within reason would do…but…

as for reliability being a good consideration, the following needs to be mandatory…

Electronic stability control
ABS
AIRBAGS
Factory Immobiliser

while you are at it, make sure said kid doesn’t have any issues seeing through the blind spots on the front A pillars and the usual rear ones.

ability to rip out the factory head unit to replace it / add reverse cam would also help said kid.

wagons roll on corners and fish tail more easily…. You need to make sure they can handle this.

netspanner

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#3354745 18-Mar-2025 09:07

We had the 1.8 2006 model for 14 years.

Loved it. So practical, and the seat at the back was really useful. Tons of storage.

Gave it away at 236K Kms still going good.

maoriboy

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#3354747 18-Mar-2025 09:36

Goosey:

My two cents…any car within reason would do…but…

as for reliability being a good consideration, the following needs to be mandatory…

Electronic stability control
ABS
AIRBAGS
Factory Immobiliser
while you are at it, make sure said kid doesn’t have any issues seeing through the blind spots on the front A pillars and the usual rear ones.

ability to rip out the factory head unit to replace it / add reverse cam would also help said kid.

wagons roll on corners and fish tail more easily…. You need to make sure they can handle this.

All good points and stuff I didn't think of! Thanks for that.

maoriboy

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#3354748 18-Mar-2025 09:39

Thanks for all the feedback. I took it for a test drive late afternoon and it ran really well. I'll get my son to take it a drive soon and see what he thinks about it. Noticed a few superficial things that we will look at and negotiate on before making an offer (conditional on pre purchase inspection) but otherwise quite impressed by the condition of it.

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