2019 Nissan Maxima Has a Cleaner Look But Lacks any Performance Upgrades

TopSpeed

By Sidd Dhimaan

Published Nov 29, 2018

A veteran that is trying to find its feet in the highly competitive market

The 2019 Nissan Maxima has made its official debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show. It looks much better than the outgoing model, comes with added safety features, but does not get any sort of performance upgrades. Sure; it may be powerful enough, but did Nissan miss out on an opportunity to stand out from the competition?

The 2019 Nissan Maximum Has Nothing New Under the Hood

No updates whatsoever. Forget about a hybrid variant; Nissan could have added at least five horses just to make it count as a change and show that it is still interested in selling its flagship car. But, whatever!

The 2019 Nissan Maxima Looks Sharper

The 2019 Maxima comes with redesigned front and rear fascias and looks much sharper than the previous iteration. The other five trims – S, SV, SL, SR, and Platinum – also get new wheel designs. The Maxima is offered with a new ‘Sunset Drift’ exterior shade as well. The rear adds integrated quad exhaust tip finishers and a new sport spoiler just above the trunk.

The 2019 Nissan Maxima has a Premium Interior

The Maxima comes with lot of new additives inside the cabin while retaining the ‘Gliding Wing’ layout from the previous model. The layout comes with Satin Bronze interior finishing treatments, heated rear seats, and a dual panoramic sunroof on the SR Premium Package. To make it feel all the more special, the Platinum Reserve Package includes Rakuda Tan leather. This is the same material that is found in the the GT-R sports car as well.

In Terms Of Safety

The 2019 Nissan Maxima is available with Nissan’s Safety Shield 360 active safety and driver-assist features. It is included in the Platinum trim and SR Premium Package. The lower trims come with safety features like automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind spot warning, lane departure warning, rear cross-traffic alert, high-beam assist, and rear automatic braking.

What They Had To Say

Nissan’s senior vice president of sales and marketing for North America, Dan Mohnke, said, "As our flagship sedan, Maxima is an important contributor to the Nissan brand. Maxima is our longest running nameplate, having thrilled owners for four decades with style, performance, and quality."

Our Take

It's widely agreed that people don’t prefer sedans anymore, but I feel Nissan should have upgraded its powertrain to make the Maxima a little more exciting. In fact, the Maxima’s sales dropped by 39.4-percent within a year (October-to-October), which is definitely something to worry about since this is Nissan’s longest running nameplate and its flagship car. Gone are the days when luxurious interiors were limited to only sedans; even SUVs and compact crossovers are as good as, or perhaps, even better than some of the best sedan interiors today. For instance, check out the amazing interior and rich feature-list on the reincarnated new Lincoln Aviator SUV.

The 2019 Nissan Maxima is expected to hit the dealers in December, although there is no word on pricing. We speculate it to start retailing for ~$34,000; a slight increase from the previous iteration. Do you think these modest new updates can pull the Maxima out of the trenches? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.