Smooth, quiet, comfortable, but the keyless ignition needs help

I rented a 2008 Nissan Altima 2.5 S sedan for ten days in February while on vacation and put 1900 miles on it. The car was generally very enjoyable to drive. Unfortunately, the car rental company didn't have the manual in the glove compartment, so some "features" left me guessing as to how to make the most of them.

My overall impression of the car was good. The 2.5 liter engine was smooth, quiet and powerful, and got about 25 miles to the gallon in mixed highway, and urban driving. The vacation drive included some mountain driving, and the handling felt secure. The brakes were good, but a bit grabby, and my size 14 foot seemed a little cramped on the gas pedal.

The cabin was comfortable, but compared to my 2005 Toyota Camry, seemed a bit stripped down. The Altima's dashboard is a huge expanse of plastic, and the drivers seat entirely manually operated. The center console and door pockets looked like plastic wastebaskets. There was plenty of headroom and leg room for my 6'4" body, but I thought the blue tint on the windshield extended so low that it sometimes intruded into my field of vision at unwelcome times.

The radio controls were too "busy" for my taste. There are buttons everywhere and their functions are less than clear at first glance, and the controls seem to blend in with the buttons on the heating and A/C system. On a rental car, a simpler radio is good thing. On the plus side, I loved the AUX input jack on the radio. I bought a stereo patch cord and was able to listen to my iPod in radio deserts.

The Altima's center console has a feature that I just discovered by accident. The top of console slides forward about four inches to extend the length of the armrest, and I liked that.

The dashboard electronics included features that I found interesting, but without the manual, I think that I missed some of the finer points. There were readouts for instantaneous MPG, time and trip odometers, and trip average miles per hour. One feature that I really missed that's standard in my Camry is having the headlights turn on automatically.

The keyless ignition in the Altima is supposed to be one of it's biggest selling points, but was my pet peeve. Instead of a key, you have a fob with buttons for locking and unlocking the doors and trunk. Having the fob in the proximity of the car is supposed to be adequate proof of ownership to start the car using the ignition button on the dash. At the car rental agency, I couldn't figure out how to start the car, so had to ask for instructions from the staff. The trick was to put your foot on the brake even though it was in PARK, and press the ignition switch.

Over the course of the next ten days, the ignition continued to confound me. The car beeped at me without any explanation of what was wrong. At one store, I accidentally left the car running, locked, (I hope) for twenty minutes or more while I was shopping. One time, I had a terrible time just trying to get the car's electrical system to turn on to listen to the radio while parked without actually running the motor. Another time, I got out, locked the car in a parking lot near other cars and heard a continuous beep, but I couldn't determine where the beep was coming from. Other people around me were trying to figure out where the beep was coming from unsuccessfully. It was only later that when I returned to the car that I found I had left the transmission in gear, not in PARK, so the car just made a continuous beep. Each time the car beeped, I had to go through a mental checklist of what could be causing the beeping.

The Altima has a spring loaded slot on the left side of the steering column to store the keyless fob, but it's low and hard to find, and does absolutely nothing useful so far as I could tell. Maybe the manual would have made the keyless ignition issues clear, but for me, give me remote door locks, and a key for the ignition!

Maybe the manual addresses this problem, but suppose you're near the car, and you have a child goofing around in the drivers seat. Couldn't the child accidentally start the car?