Luxurious Comfortable Off-Roader
Pros:
Reliability, off-road capability, handling, design, features
Cons:
gas mileage
The Bottom Line:
Other than gas mileage, this car is a great buy. It handles superbly in a wide range of conditions, including challenging off-road tracks, and comes with great comfort, reliability.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I bought my Pathfinder (LE 4x4) one year ago, and I'm overall very happy with this car. When I was in the market, I was deciding between this Pathfinder, the Nissan X-Terra and the Toyota 4Runner. I finally went with the Pathfinder because it came at a much better price that the at that point newly designed 4Runner, and it had a lot more convenience features than the X-Terra.
So far, I haven't had any mechanical problems with the car. It runs smoothly, handles very well, even in harsh situations, and has an amazing amount of cargo space considering its size. It also handles difficult off-road tracks quite well. On several occasions, I took my Nissan on challenging tracks during camping trips into the mountains, and more than once, people on ATVs looked at me and asked me with surprised faces if this car really made it down these tracks. I have crossed rivers with it, taken it up and down steep rocky slopes where the usage of the Low 4x4 gear was necessary, and have conquered sand pits and slippery and muddy flash flood basins with ease.
The major drawback of this car, as mentioned by other reviewers, is the gas mileage. When driven exclusively inner city, the best I can get is 15 miles per gallon, but it's more likely to be around 12 to 13. However, fully loaded on the highway, or fully loaded with a mixture of highway and off-road, I get 21 to 24 miles per gallon, which is acceptable for a car this size. Also, the car is not very quiet in the cabin when driving on the freeway...my son and I have to talk quite loudly over the noise of the engine. One last weak point, at least in my car, is the Bose CD player. It stopped working after 8 months, and I haven't checked into how much the repairs would be. The radio works fine, though.
Other than the low gas mileage, I can highly recommend this car. It is a great mix of luxury (leather seats, all power, seat heat, premium stereo) and off-road capability. And with so many SUVs nowadays being totally unfit for serious off-roading, this is a big plus for this truck.
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