2012, 2013? New Nissan Pathfinder breaks cover

Nissan's Pathfinder has never really found a path to the hearts of Australian buyers, lagging well behind the Pajero and Prado.  The nameplate has been on a number of vehicles, and most recently it has adorned a 7-seater wagon from about 2006 till now.  I've tested a few of them and they've been fine, but the stiff competition from Toyota, Mitsubishi and Land Rover to name but three means it doesn't quite measure up, particuarly offroad where the Pathie struggles to put power to the ground and the gearbox doesn't help by wanting to do its own thing.  The car is also a bit low on ground clearance.

Onroad handling for the Pathie has been good, but not Pajero-standard.  The one ace in the Nissan hole was the versatile interior with a 3-way split in the second row and both second and third rows could be folded flat.  The third row was also split, unlike the Pajeros. 

Now Nissan have revealed, or started to reveal the new Pathfinder and it looks like it's time to say goodbye to an icon because the company wants to compete with Territory and Kluger, not Pajero, Prado and Grand Cherokee. It's still described as a concept, but one close to production.

It is a complete redesign, and that comes only 7 years after the previous complete redesign - whereas Pajero and Prado are doing quite well with 10 and 15 years on the same basic design *. I assume the new Pathie will have Nissan's equivalent of Terrain Response although I can't see any controls for it in the pictures.  It's also safe to assume the car will retain teh current model's full-indie suspension as per old model and is clearly focused on American familiies. Hopefully it'll make a good offroad tourer. Nissan are emphaisising the cargo space which is a positive sign. It will also be a 7-seater, and the old Pathie was very good at that so this one should be even better.

Inside there's a few concerns. The first one is the All-Mode switch still has a 2WD mode. Why, why why would you bother?  These cars put out too much power to be driven in 2WD, and the others are comfortably all-wheel-drive and still return good fuel economy.

Second concern is the lack of a manual mode for the auto.  I can't see paddle shifters, but I do see an "L" on the gearshift.  If I'm guessing correctly there is no way to manually select the gear you want, and given Nissan's recent history with automatic gearbox shift design that is not good to see.  But then I realised why...it's a CVT, or Continously Variable Transmission!  That means it doesn't have gears, just a variable belt-drive, and I strongly suspect there's no low range either.   No mainstream 4WD uses CVT because the transmissions aren't strong enough, so either Nissan had made one sufficiently strong or the Pathie isn't for offroad use.  Somehow, I suspect the latter.

In the back there's another problem - the second row is now a 40/60 split, unlike the excellent 3-split in the current model.  That's a step backwards.

Still, there's hope yet that Nissan may produce a good offroad touring wagon because they do have a proud overlanding history.  Unfortunately, this new Pathfinder doesn't look like that vehicle.

* What's a redesign?  A "complete redesign" isn't the same as "significant redesign", which is what the Prado has been through in the 90/120/150. A complete redesign is when the basic structure of the car is changed, eg the NL Pajero was live-axle rear but the NM is full-indie and has a completely different chassis and body. The Disovery 1 and 2 were changes, from the 2 to the 3 was a complete redesign, and 3 to 4 was an evolution. It's all subjective of course, but for me a complete redesign means major things have changed like the chassis, suspension design, dimensions, drivetrain eg part-time to AWD, or a combination thereof. The latest Patrol is a complete redesign compared to the GU, the GQ to GU was an evolution.