I inherited a 2000 Nissan Altima. I’ve recently put a used engine in it, and also a new radiator. I commute about 40 miles a day to work, do you think I can trust it to use for work?
If you are totally on top of everything and know the condition of the car thoroughly, I can’t see why not.
Of course a Nissan needing an engine after 200,000 miles leaves me suspicious as to how the car was maintained over its life so far.
If you are not already car savvy, you’ll have to become so soon. Frequent problems will make you lose time from work and you will be prey to unscrupulous repair shops.
I drove a 12 year old Chevy Impala to well past 200,000 miles and had no reliability problems.
Your best friend will be a competent and reliable mechanic.
2 Likes
Are those mostly highway miles each day? If so, they are less taxing on the car.
And presuming you had the car checked out by a good mechanic as part of the engine & radiator replacement, my suggestion is for you to have be extra alert for the first month or so (checking fluids weekly or at least biweekly, etc) for anything that concerns you and then reduce that as your confidence builds.
This will also give you a good ‘baseline’ of how the car behaves so that you are more likely to detect something wrong in the future.
I own and drive a '99 vehicle with just under 200K on the original engine.
Good luck!
Both of my vehicles are older than that and have as many or more miles, so it must be possible to keep that sort of car on the road. There’s more to a car that can fail than the engine and radiator of course. A newer model will likely be more reliable. But if you don’t mind having to take it to the shop once in a while to replace some gadget or another (fuel pump, alternator, power steering pump, water pump, stuff like that) then I’d guess it should be a pretty good ride for you. 40 miles a day of freeway driving is pretty easy on a car. Since you don’t know the maintenance history probably, focus on the rubber parts as first priority. Tires, belts, etc. Tires in particular are easy to check their date of manufacture, and should be replaced if they are more than 8 years old.
I have not a clue but the mechanic or place that put the used motor in can answer this for you.