Three Days and 462 Miles with a Nissan Frontier Crew Cab

Well, it's just about car shopping time again in the mrkstvns household!

I still have a couple months before the lease is up on my 2000 Plymouth mini-van, but I'm already starting to keep my eyes open for a replacement, and I've pretty much decided it will be either a pickup truck or an SUV this time around. That's a pretty wide range of vehicles to look at, so I'm trying to make sure I get to drive as many different makes and models as I possibly can before I have to make that big buying decision.

Last week I was sent to Atlanta on business, and when I went to pick up my rental car I asked the clerk about upgrade options. No SUVs were available, nor were any 2003 models of anything I was interested in, but there was a 2002 Nissan Frontier out on the lot -- if I were willing to choke up about $80 in upgrade fees. The price of knowledge is not always cheap, and I was already considering either a Frontier or an Xterra as my next car, so I forked over the cashola.

I was given the keys to a metallic red 2002 Nissan Frontier Crew Cab with the SE package (V6 engine, roof rack, and power lots of stuff to play with). The truck had about 7,000 on the odometer already, which was fine by me since it should be broken in just fine by now.

Curb Appeal...
The Frontier is one of those trucks that people either love or hate at first glance. It's got enough distinctive quirks about it to either make people fall in love with its pseudo tough appearance, or to invite jibs and jabs about its phoniness. For some reason though, I can't decide whether I love it or hate it.

Sure, the plastic flared fenders with the phony looking protruding bolts give the truck a sort of industrial-grade toughness in its look and feel -- at least it does if you don't look too closely, but that look is also kind of cheesy by mere fact that those flared fenders are actually nothing but molded plastic that will inevitably invite cracks and chips and scratches from brushes with brush for anyone who dares actually try using the truck in tough-guy mode. Looking into my crystal ball (okay, so it's really a plastic Magic 8 Ball) I can tell that these flared fenders will look like trash by the time these trucks starting hitting the resale market in big numbers -- maybe in another 5 or 6 years...

On the plus side, Nissan got rid of those hideously ugly hoods they had up until a year or two ago -- the ones with the stupid looking horiozontal slots across the front end. Man! Talk about ugly! I haven't been that replused since someone showed me naked pictures of Newt Gingrich! (Do you want copies?)

Frontier's front end looks pretty beefy now. I like the big 16 inch alloy wheels and I like the way the truck sits up higher than small trucks like the basic Toyota Tacoma. I also thought the tubular roof racks were a nice touch and made the truck seem more like it belonged in the great outdoors than in the great suburban driveway.

Overall, a bit of cheese, but generally a pretty nice looking truck.

The View from the Driver's Seat...
I thought the Frontier was a comfortable vehicle to drive, not to mention being a heck of a lot more fun to drive than your basic econo box. I liked that the driver's seat on the Frontier could move so far back that the seat back practically touched the rear seat -- not that you'll endear yourself to any rear passengers if you actually try this with a fully loaded vehicle -- but it's nice from a driver's perspective when you're just cruising down the road by yourself.

As far as ergonomics go, I thought the dashboard was too tightly clustered with a tiny speedometer hunkered back in its dark cave (Nissan has this odd "tunnel" kind of look on this instrument panel). I also didn't care for the position of some controls nor the shifter.

I really disliked the complexity of the steering wheel controls. Sure, it's kind of nice to be able to switch CDs without taking your hands off the wheel, but does everything the car could possibly do have to be controled from a single "cluster" of buttons? Perhaps someone thinks this is a good idea, but I think it's a lousy design that's hard to use...at least I never really got the hang of it over the course of 3 days.

Even though I didn't have anybody riding with me, I tried out the back seat a few times, getting in and out with the front seat in different positions. Nissan ads claim that this is a "real" back seat, but I assume they just mean that it's contoured correctly and has real seat belts. It's still smaller than the back seat of a typical family sedan, and the seat sits a little higher than the front seats. With the seat in the furthest back position, it is impossible for a normal height adult to squeeze behind it, however, with the front seat about half way back, I found that it was perfectly endurable from both the driver and the passenger perspective. Since I doubt that most people are going to want to use that back seat for cross-country adventures, the spacing is probably perfectly adequate for 99% of the driving world.

The rear seat space seemed perfectly adequate for small children, and I liked that the front passenger airbag could be switched off if you had children riding in the front seat. (Although I have an inherent mistrust of safety features that can be overridden -- the world has an absolutely enormous population of boneheads in it who will forever leave it turned off.)

I liked the stereo system in this truck, and I understand that the 6-CD changer is a standard feature with all SE and higher models. The sound quality was excellent even when I needed to crank up the volume when playing Mana's Revolucion de Amor -- see my review of that excellent CD in the Epinions music area.

The shifter is slightly far forward on the automatic transmissions and the console is not much more than glorified plastic cup holders. I don't usually drink from plastic cups, but I can assure you that the holders also work fine with bottles of Paulaner Oktoberfest beer (see my review of that excellent malt beverage in the Epinions gourmet area).

I just wish I'd had the opportunity to take this truck into Mexico (see my 182 excellent reviews of traveling around that country in the Epinions travel area).

Under the Hood...
If this truck ever had any get up and go, it must have got up and went. I haven't driven a vehicle with such sluggish acceleration since my days as a kid at the soapbox derby.

Nissan claims that the V6 on the SE trucks puts out 170 horsepower, but I can scarcely believe it. When I floored it in a vain attempt to accelerate to highway speeds, I was passed by an old man in a Hyundai Excel and a school bus. I think the kids laughed at me...I know the old man did!

Nissan does offer an optional supercharged V6, and my gut instinct is that they should make it a standard feature on this pokey little beast of burden.

To be honest though, most small pickups are not exactly speed demons. When I've driven Ford Rangers, I've found them to also be real slugs, although the Toyota Tacoma has never really hit me as particularly pokey even though I know that their 6-cylinder is also pretty wimpy in the horsepower department.

It really isn't fair though to grade any kind of truck based only on horsepower and acceleration. That approach can work for cars, but not really for trucks. For trucks, you also need to consider how much torque the vehicle produces and what kind of payload and towing load the vehicle can handle.

Nissan's specs say that this vehicle produces 200 foot-pounds of torque at 2800 rpm and that it has a towing capacity of 5,000 pounds (I guess I'd better not buy this truck since that would almost be enough to let my mother-in-law come with me). Those specs are better than Ford Ranger's low-end V6, but not as good as their larger V6 nor as good as Dodge Dakota's larger V6.

Frontier seems to be optimized a little more closely to the needs of people who really want a vehicle with a truck-like feel as opposed to the suburban dads who don't really ever carry anything in their truck, other than maybe their kids' soccer buddies. That's why Frontier has fairly good torque numbers while trucks like Tacoma have a little more horsepower and are more responsive in a typical standing start situation.

Utilitarian Perspectives...
This truck is available with different bed lengths, from about 4-1/2 feet to the optional 6-foot "long bed". Most Frontiers that I've seen have the shorter bed, a plastic bed liner (which I believe is factory-installed on many models, but I'm not sure about that), and a locking tailgate (most competing small trucks don't have locks on the tailgate.

Although the bed on your basic Frontier is too short to haul anything much longer than a suitcase, Nissan does provide a bed extender that lets you drop the tailgate and have another foot or two of potential carrying capacity. I've never felt that this approach (which is pretty common on a lot of trucks these days) is as good as a real, honest-to-goodness long bed, but if you want a larger cab, and you still want a vehicle that's small enough to maneuver in suburban shopping mall parking lots, then I guess it's a reasonable trade-off. Personally, I think I would prefer this vehicle with the optional long bed, and I'd want the bed liner and the extender on top of that so that I'd be approaching 8 feet of usable space when I dropped the gate.

I like the roof racks on this vehicle with their satiny smooth tubular look. I've heard that these racks were designed by Yakima, but I don't see anything on Nissan's web site to confirm that nasty rumor, so take it with a grain of salt. Regardless of where the racks came from, they still look sexy, plus they add some extra usable space for those folks who really do want to use this vehicle as a truck (yeah, I'm talking to both of you).

By the way, I got all the numbers and stuff off Nissan's web site. I recommend checking it out for yourself if you're really interested in this vehicle: www.nissanusa.com

Bottom Line...
I like the Frontier. It's not the most comfortable vehicle I've ever driven, and it's certainly not the top performer. It has a few ergonomic problems that I think could be worked on, and I don't care for some of the hokey features -- like plastic fender flares. But this truck really does seem to be a truck in its heart and soul, and not just a sedan on steroids. It is fun to drive, it has a lot of basic utilitarian value, and I generally perceive this to be a vehicle with a fairly good safety and reliability record. There might well be vehicles out there that trip my trigger more than the Frontier, but if I spot a good deal from one of the Houston area dealers in the next couple months, I could see myself buying one of these.

Until next time, see you on the road. Just please don't laugh at me if I'm chugging along in an underpowered small pickup, okay? Thank you!