We are in a position to sell one of our cars, but unsure which one to sell:
2001 Nissan Maxima SE, 80k miles. Has sunroof and ABS (standard). Gets about 19 mpg in city driving. Has a couple of quirks (steering wheel controls don’t work sometimes, driver’s side window automatic up doesn’t always work, gas tank release gets stuck and requires you to push on the cover).
or
2002 Toyota Camry LE, 91k miles. Gets about 25 mpg in city driving. No quirks, but has required slightly more maintenance in the last few years.
Based on Edmunds and KBB the Camry should sell for about $500 more, but that’s not really a factor for us.
My initial thought is to keep the Camry; it gets better gas mileage and Toyotas are notorious for lasting forever.
The Nissan, however, has ABS and has had fewer mechanical issues to date – it was the last year of it’s design vs the first year for the 2002 Camry.
Any thoughts or advice would be helpful!
Keep the camry; you will be able to afford future repairs on the Cmary much better than the Maxima. By now the bugs are out of the Camry and you have many years of affordable driving ahead of you.
A friend of mine had a Maxima and spent $2800 fixing those balky electric door locks!
It sounds like the Nissan has some wiring concerns in the steering wheel column. If they get worse, it’ll be hell to fix.
Sell the nissan, we have had 3 Camry 1987, 1999 and 2002. Still have the 99 and 02, never any major probs with any of them. Why doesn’t your Camry have ABS? It was/is standard on both our 99 and 02.
Whichever one you keep will be the wrong one. 
I just sold my 97 Taurus and immediately the 98 Camry springs an exhaust leak AND blows through another strut mount (literally, the next day)…
There’s really no guarantee either way… a relative’s 2002 Camry was working just fine for years, until it started surging on its own, and Toyota has no clue why.
Which engine in the Camry, V6 or 4 cyl? If it’s the V6, has the timing belt been changed?
Financially, the Camry will probably cost less to keep on the road over the next 10 years.
The only reason to keep the Maxima is if you like to drive it moreso than the Camry.
The Camry is a 4 cyl. We just took it to our mechanic for a “90,000 mile checkup” and he said it has a timing chain, not a timing belt.
To reply to others – no, the 2002 Camry didn’t come standard with ABS. The GLE and SE had it standard, but not the LE.
The steering wheel audio controls on the Maxima are a known issue; costs about $90 to replace the controls and then they work fine for a few years until they gum up again.
We haven’t had to do any major work at all on the Maxima. The Camry has required a fuel injection/induction cleaning (was running rough; check engine light came on a couple times), a new catalytic converter (under warranty, thankfully), had an issue with the struts (fixed by a Toyota dealership for free; another dealership wanted $800 to replace much of the suspension), and some other minor nits – including one of the power ports being dead still.
Of course, this could just mean that Maxima is due for a major issue any day now!
Thanks for all the opinions!
Keep the Camry…though it looks to me like a little research into selling both and buying a newer car might be in order.