Tag: Nissan

By: Jeff Perez – Motor1

The Nissan Frontier is one of the oldest vehicles on sale today – the current model debuted all the way back in 2004. But Nissan is going back to the drawing board, the company promising a more modern, better-looking truck for 2021. And it needs to be good in order to compete in a stacked class that includes relative newcomers like the Jeep Gladiator and Ford Ranger, as well as more established alternatives like the Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, and Honda Ridgeline.

There have been more than a dozen reports hinting at details like power, styling, and price. But until the new Frontier debuts (hopefully sometime later this year), we take each of these rumors with a grain of salt. That said, here’s what we think we know about the 2021 Nissan Frontier thus far.

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By Scott Evans – Words, Jade Nelson – Photos – MotorTrend

Every pickup on the market offers four-wheel drive, or in the case of the Honda Ridgeline and some Chevrolet Silverados, all-wheel drive— learn the difference here. Nearly all of them also offer a specific off-roading package of parts, and a few offer extreme off-road variants. The 2020 Nissan Frontier Pro-4X model leans toward the more capable side of the standard off-road package, so we hit the trail to see if the Pro-4X parts and the new engine and transmission added up to dirt dominance.

Let’s take stock of the equipment we’re working with and why I think it’s a little more substantial than the usual off-road package. The party piece is the manually lockable rear differential, which is frustratingly only functional with the four-wheel drive in Low Range. I get the logic: if you’re in a situation where you need a locker, you probably also need low gears. That’s not always true, and the whole point of having a manual locker is deciding for yourself when to use it. This is likely a case of corporate lawyers trying to keep people from using it in four-wheel drive high or in two-wheel drive, lest we misbehave.

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By Scott Evans – Words; Jade Nelson – Photos – MotorTrends

“Oh gosh,” photographer Jade Nelson texted me, “that looks five years old.”

“More like 16,” I replied.

Technically, we were both wrong. The brand-new truck Jade couldn’t find in an almost empty parking lot was, in fact, introduced 16 years ago, but it got a facelift in 2008, making it 12 years old. Except not really, because the 2020 Nissan Frontier gets an all-new engine and transmission in preparation for the truck’s long-awaited total replacement next year.

Think of it as a trial run. After more than a decade on the market without a significant change, and with the small truck market on fire with several new competitors in the field, Nissan needs to get the all-new truck right on Day 1. The engine and transmission are major components of any vehicle, so because they’re ready now, Nissan is trying them out on the current Frontier before installing them on the new truck. Any bugs that need working out will be sorted during the soft open here before the grand opening next year.

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