Ramon has a 2003 Nissan Altima, or thought he had one until he took it to the dealership when he found it dead in the driveway one morning.

I have a 2003 Nissan Altima. My wife went to crank the car and it would not start. You heard the noise it made when it was trying to start the engine but it would not engage. I had the car towed to the local Nissan dealership and they said that the engine was not any good anymore because it did not have any compression in it. They stated that the catalytic converter came apart and stuff went into the engine. Before that day the car was driving, cranking, etc, fine (it has 113,000 miles on it). The dealership said that to replace with a new and even a refurb. engine it would cost me 4500.00 and above... I have told many people about my car problems and they are very skeptical of the problem because they are saying that Nissans, Toyotas, Honda, etc. ... are known to run for 200,000 plus miles. I feel like I am getting lied to here. By the way I was laid off of my job and money is very TIGHT in my household so the thousands of dollars these guys are asking for is crazy. What do I do ??
Ramon

According to Ramon, the dealership is telling him that his catalytic converter, which is well South of any engine activity, shattered and killed the engine, which is why he thinks he's being flim-flammed. Your car has what is called a pre-cat, basically a smaller catalyst location located right at the exhaust manifold. Thanks to a few miscalculations by the designers at Nissan, this pre-cat will overheat and break apart, causing particles to be sucked into your engine. Another scenario was an overheating of your catalytic converter, so much that it melted and fused itself into a solid block. When this occurs, the engine can't "exhale," and the backpressure of not being able to get the exhaust out causes engine failure. Unfortunately, it happens. It happens more often in turbocharged vehicles due to the already high exhaust temps, but any car can melt its cat. If you have doubts, get a second opinion from a shop that specializes in Nissan.

UPDATE: After looking into this further, I found there are a number of recalls related to this issue that are specific to Nissan Altima, and later the SE-R (thanks Troy!). Definitely worth looking into, although it's no guarantee your situation will change much financially.