• 2016 Nissan Sentra S

• Acquired September 2016

• Mileage when acquired: 10

• Gun Metallic

• 1.8l MRA8DE Inline-4, 6-speed Manual 

Hey everyone, Meandering Beard here! One aspect of my blog is to tell the stories of the vehicles I have acquired through the years, especially as they pertain to my travels. The ones that I own or have owned will have their stories told here; the ones that I currently own will have their posts connected to whatever post is referencing them in a hyperlink, or whatever Gen Z calls them these days. I know it’s not a “glizzy”. I do know what those are.

Today’s vehicle is one near and dear to my heart. I’m talking about the one and only 2016 Nissan Sentra S, that I named Frank. Frank Sentra. Get it? Get it? (You get it.) I’m probably way more proud of this car than anyone could see that I have a right to be, but I have my reasons. Primarily, Frank was responsible for a lot of personal firsts for me: First car I purchased with my own money, first new car I purchased, first solo roadtrip, first roadtrip with my significant other (late bloomer, don’t ask), brought both kids home from the hospital in it, first roadtrip with my family. Frank was also my first car, but not my first vehicle; I had two Ford trucks from the 90’s before I bought Frank. And while I do miss both of them for nostalgic reasons, believe me when I say that Frank was a massive improvement. I know, the bar is in the basement for that one. 

I was well into the second year at the place I still work at, I was aware that this would be my first year I was eligible for a bonus, and I was aware that my 1994 Ford F-150 needed replacing. Sure, it was free from my mechanic grandfather, which meant that I only had to replace about 40% of the front of the engine. But it got lousy fuel mileage, and at this rate, I wasn’t changing the oil as much as I was adding it to the engine at the rate of a quart a month. I’m not sure where it was going, since it was neither leaking nor burning; But a free truck that was fast approaching 250k miles thanks to a 60 mile round trip commute three or four days a week meant I’d rather lay out money for a newer car than to solve that particular mystery. Especially since the truck had a habit of waiting for me to fix one issue before something broke to cause the next issue, usually right after the previous issue was resolved. In any case, I knew I was due for something better. I wanted something with a little bit more get up and go, cruise control, an auxiliary input for the radio, and hey, Bluetooth would be nice too. Again, really low bars. Anything was better than that truck. 

I really wanted a manual transmission as well. I missed that from my first truck, a 1998 Ford Ranger that I was given as a Christmas gift when I was 16. I did horrible teenage boy things to that poor truck, and was totally surprised when it didn’t last too long into my young adult years. But I figured I had matured enough to try a stick shift again. Even if I got something fast, I wasn’t planning on doing (too m)any donuts in the parking lot.

Eight months of researching, studying, test driving cars (usually at the local CarMax), and I had narrowed it down some. I knew my budget would only allow for a loan of $20,000, and at the time (2016) that allowed for stuff such as V6 Camaros and Mustangs, the uncommon but still available Ford Fusion with a manual and a 1.6L EcoBoost Turbocharged engine, and the Nissan Juke. God, that thing was weird, but one test drive and I had fallen in love. 

One other particular vehicle that had caught my eye was a 2015 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport. Small crossover with a stick, good fuel mileage, had a stick shift, and good options. Rode well, and within my budget. Lightly used, like around ten thousand miles on the odo. It seemed perfect, too.

Now, all of these were used, of course. I didn’t think there was anything new within my budget that would work well. There was the Mitsubishi Mirage, but…as weird as I was (and still am), I was at least very well aware of it. I wouldn’t have minded it, but I also figured I wanted to attract a female woman sometime by the end of the decade too. I know. My standards were too high.

Anyway, long story short: after months of researching and narrowing my choices down to something used with a good amount of muscle, or at least a turbo…it all went out the window when I saw the local Nissan dealership was having a sale on the new 2016 Sentras. $12,995 before TT&L, and they had at least a half dozen with manual transmissions. Cool. I went after work and tested one in an awesome blue-with-tan-interior combo. Drove great, decent kit even for a stripper model. This was the one.

 Went to secure a loan at a local credit union. Came back, and…The One was gone. No other blue ones, either. All they had was black, white, grey, and red. Red wouldn’t work for me; I was never flashy, and I’d already had a red truck. Black, nuther—black was too hot in the Louisiana summers. And also I currently had a black truck. White was too hard to keep clean. Ugh, fine. I’ll take the grey one. Test drove that one too, before I signed the papers. What do you know? The new grey one test drove exactly the same as the new blue one. Went back in, signed the papers, and a brand new car was all mine.

And boy, did I take advantage! I took my truck to work, to get food, and to visit my family 75 miles away. Never even trusted it to go out of state. Within two weeks of ownership of Frank, I had taken it 75 miles in a different direction, on my first mini-roadtrip to Tunica Hills. Before the year was out, and just after the first oil change, I had gone on my first solo roadtrip, to visit a friend in Lawrence, Kansas. (These are stories for another post. We’re talking about my car now.) Since then, there’s been at least one out-of-state roadtrip with Frank per year. Actually, until I had kids, it was more like an average of two. Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Tennessee…Most of the South, actually. Except South Carolina, for some reason. And I’m not sure my time in Georgia counts; I was there for, like, ten minutes total because I-24 gets weird outside of Chattanooga.

Now, in the early months of 2025, Frank is close to eight years and over 156,000 miles old. Of all those miles, I’m pretty sure that less than a thousand of them were not driven by me. The vast majority of the total mileage on the odometer is due to the fact that Frank is my main ride to work, which ever since I moved to my house is a 36 mile round trip commute, 3 or 4 (sometimes 5) days a week. Now that I have other vehicles (covered in other posts), I’m hoping that average mileage gain will slow down some. I would like to be able to take Frank to 250 thousand miles, or maybe more, before I start to think of getting rid of him.

Maintenance

Those numbers seem rather achievable, given how little I’ve had to shell out for more than just the standard upkeep. Obviously, I’ve had to change the oil a few times. And except for the very first oil change—during which I was financially reminded why lots of people don’t typically go to the dealer to get this sort of thing done—I’ve changed the oil myself every time. (Side note: I don’t think there’s a car/engine out there that makes oil changes easier. The filter is right there by the drain plug underneath the car; no squeezing, reaching, contorting, or any other form of exercise other than fighting how hard you tightened the filter on the last oil change.) I, uh, took a little on the long side to change the spark plugs, but once I did, Frank stopped complaining. I did change the air filter, a little late (120k-ish miles), but replacing the factory filter with one from K&N was worth it for the enhanced induction noise alone.

All of the routine maintenance is fine, but the fact that there’s been very little in the way of non-routine maintenance, and absolutely no emergency maintenance, is where Frank shines bright. Before there were 5000 miles on the odometer, I had taken the car in for a “service bulletin” (which sounds like legalese meant to avoid the word “recall”) to replace the door seals, at no cost to me. This was necessary, because both myself and my mechanically handy father (lumping him into this so y’all don’t think I’m a complete idiot, only a partial one) could have sworn that the wind noise coming from the passenger side door frame was actually some grinding noise coming from the wheel well. Never had a problem with the door seals since.

At 117k miles, the air conditioning compressor went out. That wasn’t cheap to replace, but it was necessary. At the time it went out I had an infant I was carting to and from the babysitter, and even in April it was hot and humid in Louisiana. The mechanic told me that it was the second most common failure on modern Nissans after the transmission issues (more on that in a second), and that mine had survived to roughly the outside time frame that they were expected to fail, essentially getting me my money’s worth out of both the old part and the new.

At around 145k miles, at least one motor mount needed replacing, so while I was at it, I replaced all three. And then, three weeks later, I replaced the main one again when the new one turned out to be defective. That’s one of those things that needs to be taken care of ASAP, because leaving bad motor mounts starts to affect other parts of the car. The transmission being the biggest one.

Speaking of the transmission…well, those who know about these sorts of things, know what I’m talking about. But for those who don’t: Nissan is…not well known for their bulletproof automatic transmissions. There are many horror stories of them grenading well before 100k miles. Getting another stick shift simply because I wanted one was the primary driver for me picking Frank, because at the time I bought him I wasn’t aware of the issues with the CVTs that Nissan uses. That was simply a lucky break for me. The 6-speed isn’t buttery smooth, but I’ve had to do zero transmission work whatsoever since beginning of ownership. Frank is even still rocking the factory clutch, and the whole thing shifts like new. Maybe. I could just be used to whatever condition the transmission is in now, but I wouldn’t know if its good or bad unless I drove a newer 6-speed Sentra, and I kinda don’t feel like doing that. To inflate my own ego, I’d like to think that part of the reason for the transmission’s surprising longevity is that I learned on Frank how to properly float gears. Some people say its good to do if you know what you’re doing, while others don’t recommend it at all. All I know is, like 90% of my shifting is done without the clutch, I grind gears on accident maybe once a year, and the car just keeps on trucking. Car-ing? Whatever.

Modifications

Not really. Partly because of finances. Okay, mostly because of finances. Frank was my only car for a good long while; there was no reason to make it more unreliable for the sake of speed or fun, especially after the warranty expired. There was the aforementioned K&N air filter, but I don’t think it even improved fuel economy all that much. If at all. Sure made the engine sound better though. I removed the hubcaps; this was partly because one in particular had been taking quite the beating, but mostly it was to change up things a little (Frank on bare steelies looks pretty decent). The rear windshield has a stick-on shade, and the rear windows have curtains, all for the sake of the kid’s comfort in the summer. The only other modification I really want at this point is spike lugs, for a touch of irony.

I have lost count of how many major road trips, minor road trips, day trips, day drives, night drives, weekend trips, visits to family and friends, etc., etc., that Frank and I have gone on. I know there were a lot before I met my wife, and there were many more after. I plan on many more in the future, and I hope to be able to tell y’all about as many of these trips, both past and present, as I can.