Wow. No way. If I thought a car would likely need $2500 in covered repairs, excluding typical maintenance, by 105k or so, I wouldn't buy it. Even if we accept the "OMG it's an abused rental" refrain, it still isn't likely to show up to the tune of $2500. There's a chance, but I'd say there's better than 50/50 chance that it will not. If it cost $1000, maybe this would take a bit more thought, but at $2500 no way.

Put the $2500 into savings as a "car repair fund" and don't buy the warranty, that's my vote.

The only thing that gives me a tiny bit of pause is the Nissan service guy. He would be in position to know things specific to some Nissans, although not necessarily likely specific to the current version of the Maxima because most probably wouldn't be at the mile numbers he is citing. And he wouldn't be in a position to benefit from saying the warranty is a good deal, unless he's a friend of the Hertz guy. Still, while I say it without intimate knowledge of possible later repairs to this specific model, I wouldn't sink the $2500 into the warranty. I would take the chance that even though he cited those items, they may be for older versions of the car and probably on average don't fail that soon. Some models or brands get a reputation for this issue or that, even though that issue on the whole still affects a fairly small percentage of all the cars of that make/model.