My family has been a Nissan family for a long time. At the end of high school, my parents bought a base late model 2003 Nissan Sentra. An automatic transmission was the only option they added (Mom refused to drive stick). Feel hot? Crank your own damn windows. Before the Sentra, our family ran a 1997 Nissan Quest GXE purchased at a police auction. The hood had a big notch in it where someone had tried to pry it open with a crowbar. Dad had no love for these machines. Maintenance included oil changes every 5,000 miles, and “car washes” whenever it rained.  His goal was to provide point to point transportation at minimal cost and attention. The Quest felt so unloved that it finally decided to commit suicide by spilling oil and warped metal shards all over the street. I didn’t cry over the Quest, but I had many good memories associated with it. It’s probably the source of my minivan love. The Sentra is still doing well mechanically, but if that car had a soul, it’d be a tormented one. Unlike the Quest, the Sentra didn’t even have good memories to redeem itself. I hated it, and projected that hatred on all future models of the Nissan lineup. It was an anti-halo car: Drive one, and you’d never want another Nissan. When Zipcar added a 2011 Sentra SR to my parking lot, I wanted to see if my memory was remembering things worse than they had been.

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