Nissan Pulsar 1989

Nissan Pulsar 1989 Q&As

Check out real-world situations relating to the Nissan Pulsar here, particularly what our experts have to say about them.

• I have a 2003 Nissan pulsar ST. How much is it worth?

  Mileage is a very important factor in the retained value of a car like this. The more kilometres it has covered, the less it will be worth. There’s also a sort of kilometre-cliff over which a car will plummet in residual-value terms once it breaches that distance-covered.

  Even though you’ve cared for the car and serviced it properly, most buyers will be a bit leery of a car like a Pulsar with so many kilometres on board. Even in otherwise good condition, it would probably struggle to fetch more than about $3000 in the current market.

  Show more Show less
• Do you think owners of Nissan CVT cars like the Pulsar should create a class action for all the out of pocket repairs on cars doing less than 100,000 km but more than three years old?

  The CVT transmission has haunted many a car-maker over the years and just when another car-makers thinks they’ve got the tech nailed, along comes another series of failures that makes consumers think again.

  Late last year in the USA, Nissan paid out a US$277 million settlement for a class action brought by owners of its CVT-equipped cars, so there’s certainly a precedent for this. However, don’t assume that US and Australian consumer law are the same – they’re not. The lawsuit, meantime, accused Nissan of knowing about the fault for years and doing nothing. Nissan, while admitting no wrongdoing, agreed to pay the claims.

  The viability or otherwise of a class action legal case is not the sort of advice Carsguide dispenses. You would need to talk with a law firm specialising in this type of litigation and then weigh up the costs and potential benefits, bearing in mind a win is no certainty in these cases.

  Show more Show less
• I tried to turn on the white LED lights in my 2016 Nissan Pulsar and they're not working...

  I’ll assume you’re talking about what Nissan calls the Pulsar’s `Accent Lights’ which are fundamentally LED daylight running lamps. I have heard of these failing, and the cause was a poorly soldered connection which should be pretty easy for an auto electrician to put right.

  Finding the fault will involve checking for power at the lights and then working backwards to the switch to see which component is not playing. Even though they’re LEDs, trouble-shotting is no different to any other electrical component that appears to have lost power. Again, a good auto sparkie should be able to figure it out.

  Show more Show less
• How reliable is the N15 1998 Nissan Pulsar LX 1.6-litre five-speed manual?

  In a nutshell, these were pretty reliable cars mechanically speaking. Simple and fairly rugged, they were not known to have any major, endemic problems.

  The caveat is that they’re now nearly 25 years old, so the reliability of one today has a lot more to do with how it’s been serviced and maintained than its reputation back in the day. And because they were always a pretty cheap car, they were also a very cheap second-hand car and were bought by a lot of people who couldn’t afford to maintain them properly. So a lot of them are totally worn out now.

  But if you can find one with some kind of service history and one that hasn’t had too many previous owners or has operated as a company fleet car, then you might be looking at a reliable little car that will cost peanuts to own and run.

  Keep in mind, though, that the one area that budget cars of this era consistently fall down is in safety. This car lacks every modern driver aid we’ve come to rely upon, including ABS brakes and ESP. Even the driver’s air-bag was optional back in 1998. So if the car being bought for a young or inexperienced driver, you might want to think again.

  Show more Show less