Nissan Pulsar FAQs

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

• 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.

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• 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.

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• What is my 2001 Nissan Pulsar worth?

  Your car is probably still worth around $4000 to $5000 depending on condition and kilometres. The catch is that you won’t be offered that much if you use the car as a trade-in, and the value I’ve quoted would be to sell the car privately, not back to a car dealer. A lack of demand for good used cars is keeping values a little higher (a lot higher in some cases) than they might have been, so even though your car is still worth decent money, you’ll pay a bit extra for whatever you replace it with.

  As far as lifespan goes, that has a lot more to do with maintenance than any other factor. If your car has been serviced by the book, there’s every chance it could last for 200,000 to 250,000km and perhaps even more. But I’ve also seen neglected cars die incredibly young.

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