The Pathfinder shares the angular, slightly lumpy styling of the Armada, which is not exactly setting the market on fire. But as Nissan has sent the Xterra slightly upmarket, it had to make the Pathfinder bigger and more deluxe to create some level of product differentiation.īut as it made the Pathfinder more upscale, it now treads close to the same territory as the Nissan Armada, the company’s SUV flagship. The original Pathfinder was a compact, nimble, rugged SUV that remains a very good used-car buy. The problem with having lots of SUVs – and it’s a problem Toyota and Lexus have encountered with their eight sport-utes – is that, at some point, you are competing not only against other manufacturers but against yourself.Ĭase in point: The all-new 2005 Nissan Pathfinder. Nissan and Infiniti now offer a total of six SUVs, and a new car-based, sub-Xterra model may soon be added. By the time Nissan launched its entry-level SUV, the Xterra, for the 2000 model year, Toyota had been selling the RAV4 for four years.Īn influx of cash from new owner Renault allowed Nissan the luxury of designing and building more vehicles. Economic hardship required the company to rely on the Pathfinder and its Infiniti derivative, the QX4, for far too long.
Compared with the competition, Nissan was way, way behind the curve when it came to capitalizing on the sport-utility-vehicle craze.
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