Nissan Pathfinder range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Nissan Pathfinder range
Prices: £28,495 -£31,595- on the road [2.5 dCi 190] INSURANCE GROUPS: 13-15 [est]
Emissions: 224-250g/km [est]
Performance: [2.5] 0-60mph 11 s / Max Speed 115mph [est]
Fuel Consumption: [2.5] (combined) 31mpg
Safety: Driver, Passenger, front seat and curtain airbags, ABS, ESP
Dimensions: length/width/height 4740/1850/1763mm [est]

PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE

Our Rating: 7.0 / 10

Nissan’s Pathfinder is designed to make life with an active family that little bit easier. Steve Walker reports.

For the price of a middling compact executive saloon, Nissan will sell you a vehicle with the ability to drive through terrain you’d hesitate to walk over. It will come with an interior of space and durability designed to cope with the challenges posed by life with sticky-fingered offspring. It will be a car with forceful looks and affordable running costs. It will be called the Pathfinder.

There’s often a substantial gulf between the way 4x4 buyers actually use their 4x4 vehicles and the utopian visions manufacturers lay out in commercials and publicity material. Nissan’s Pathfinder 4x4 certainly has the ability to access remote locations with a family of catalogue models and their camping gear safely stowed inside but it’s also built to handle the school run, the motorway and the supermarket car park - the places where real people are most likely to use it.

The big Nissan is what we’d term a family 4x4, less plush and prestigious than the more expensive models in the luxury 4x4 class but still big and capable. Mitsubishi’s Shogun, Land Rover’s Discovery and Toyota’s Land Cruiser all fit roughly into the same sector. There’s a tough, utilitarian feel to the vehicle and it’s no great surprise that Nissan also sells an ostensibly similar pick-up version called the Navara. The latest Pathfinders benefit from a mild facelift and more interesting upgrades to interior trim and engines.

Torque is always nice to have but it takes on a new level of importance in a big vehicle with off-road tendencies. It’s the mid-range muscle you need for getting briskly up to speed, powering up inclines and hauling you out of trouble when you venture off the tarmac. It’s a good thing then, that the latest Pathfinder engines are overflowing with the stuff. The 2.5-litre four-cylinder option is a long-serving Nissan unit but these days it campaigns with 187bhp and a meaty 450Nm of torque. The real big-hitter, however, is the 3.0-litre V6 diesel with 228bhp. Here, torque is upped to 550Nm and it’s on stream from just 1,700rpm. That’s more grunt than the Audi R8 supercar.

The Pathfinder is a comfortable cruiser but it also takes to winding country roads with a level of composure not normally associated with big 4x4 vehicles. Pick up the pace and the body rolls in corners and pitches under braking but not unnervingly so. The steering is reassuringly accurate and the braking feels secure. All Pathfinders feature the Nissan ALL MODE four-wheel-drive system which includes a low ratio mode for proper offroading. Traction is governed by a special ESP system that marshals the ABS brakes, the traction control and the active yaw control for optimum performance both on and off the tarmac. The latest Pathfinders are also equipped with Hill Decent control and Hill Start Assist, the former to ease you down precipitous offroad obstacles, the second to aid smooth getaways up inclines.

Today’s Pathfinder can be picked out from earlier iterations by its curvier front bumper that juts further forward and arches around the corners to meld with the flared wheelarches. Tweaks to the bonnet and grille are less easy to spot. Far more useful were upgrades to the switch gear and cabin materials inside. The Pathfinder has always been a simple and sturdily built customer but the latest versions have a bit more class about them inside. There’s more storage space dotted around the cabin with re