2009 Nissan Frontier Review

Sum ‘n’ Substance:

You consider any vehicle, as matter of fact any mode of transport and read its review. You’ll notice that every single review will have one very hot question, “is it efficient? or does it have good mileage? or How much fuel does it drink? Is it practical? Or what are the savings on fuel?…you can beat around the how much ever you like but, it still asks the same damn thing.

In today’s day and age, a vehicle is not judged by its looks and performance alone, the latest addition is the fuel consumption/economy/efficiency and how-many-plants-sprout-around-you as you drive along. Over the years, all pick up trucks have been  built with massive engines, obviously, they need to pull and carry loads nearly twice their weight, but these massive engines were gaping fuel drains. This was not a  problem back then, because gas was abundant and the world seemed to be doing well, financially. But today’s world is on the brink of fuel- extinction and is suffering from recession and other debts. Naturally, gas has become the next precious commodity and to add ‘fuel’ to the fire, we are out of money. That means we cannot afford the fuel guzzling monsters that will cut our pockets and empty  our bank balances directly. to  prevent consumers from running buck wild on alternative modes and services, manufacturers are building more economical trucks, like the Silverado Hybrid and the Ford 150 SFE, but are a tad pricey.

Now what Nissan is attempting is even better. Along with the same efficiency that the Silverado and SFE manage, the  Frontier will beat it in the price tag. It costs around $20000 but there is a catch, it is a four cylinder mid-size pick up truck. And to maintain the fuel economy of the truck, Nissan has equipped it with the most basic facilities, such as air-con, manual locking and manual windows and ordinary looking 15 inch wheels. I guess that the price you pay for $20k.

Moving under the hood, we have 152 horses at 5,200 rpm and 171 lbs/ft of torque at 4,400 rpm  being pumped out of a 2.5 liter four cylinder engine. This assembly is mated to a five speed manual. The mileage recorded a decent 21 mpg in the city roads and 23mpg on the highway. To sum the ride and handling in one word, bad. Not horrid, just bad. The frontier steered like a drunk , and it really lacked the power to give it an edge. To make things worse, it is supposed to be a mid size pick-up, and it has to manage a hefty load with that puny power. Inevitably, the frontier manages a payload of just 1,002 lbs and a towing capacity of 3,500 lbs. that is nearly the amount any SUV can handle.

The insides of the truck are stripped down to its bare necessities, nothing  worth noting but, I would mention that the bucket seats installed are extremely comfortable.

To sum up, the  frontier is a comfortable and cheap truck. It does not offer any thing special, the term luxury cannot be uttered in a truck like this, it does not do well in its responsibilities of being a truck, power delivery is least exciting and the mileage is not something that you’d want to write home about.