I purchased a brand new 2009 black Nissan Maxima. The paint on my hood and roof are also horrible. It looks like the clear coat dissolved. Every black Maxima and Altima I’ve seen that is any where around that age is the same. I believe the paint was defective and Nissan should pay for the body to be painted. I only have 61,000 miles on my car, but this may be the last Maxima I ever purchase. This year did NOT hold up like my first Maxima, and I bought that one used! The paint faded several years ago AND my driver side sun visor kept getting stuck now the arm has torn through the material and is broken AND my driver side door will NOT stay open when I’m trying to get out of the car, it closes on me constantly and has been doing so since I bought it. I would advise anyone not to purchase this year and to be careful of Maximas. I am sorely disappointed in my car. I loved Maximas before this.
Paint does not wear much with mileage. It ages. The car is TEN year old! If you live in a hot sunny place the clearcoat on nearly any black car will fail in that time.
Your car is 10 years old. Nissan owes you nothing.
I think what you guys are missing is that the majority of 10 year old cars don’t have failing paint. This is probably why the poster feels as though they’ve been had. Will Nissan do anything? No. Is ten years out of a factory paint job tolerable? Probably. Is it defective paint? Judging how most 10 year old cars look on the road, yes.
In the desert failing clear coat is a common sight on Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi vehicles. Clear coat quality varies between manufactures, I had a co-worker with a 1990 Lexus LS 400 that had perfect paint, few cars from that period could match that.
Paint defects must be brought forward during the warranty period, not a decade later.
How often do you wash and wax the car?
Do you park the car outside?
A friend of mine had a Nissan w/serious paint problems at 10 years. They replaced it w/a Corolla and no paint problems on that car even at 15 years. It’s not an apples and oranges comparison though b/c they were diligent keeping the Corolla clean with at least a hosing off once a week, and waxing twice a year. They seldom cleaned and never waxed the Nissan.
That’s not frequent enough to save your clear coat in the long run where I live . . . not if the car is parked outside
To sum it up . . . around here, if you park the car outside, wash it several times a year and wax it a few times a year, the clear coat will probably still start failing when the car is 10 - 15 years old
But I’ve seen many cars with failing clear coats well before the 10 year mark