![]() One trip through the mountains, however, in a 170-hp, 3.3-liter, 12-valve, SOHC Pathfinder, listening to the transmission shift up and down incessantly as it tries to locate a little power, is just no fun. Nissan has anted up a DOHC, 24-valve 3.5-liter V-6 for the Pathfinder (and its luxo-twin, the Infiniti QX4, as noted in the accompanying story), and suddenly we're getting a V-8-caliber 0-to-60 mph time of 9.2 seconds, with quarter-mile performance of 17.0 seconds at 80 mph, instead of 18.2 seconds at an are-we-there-yet 74 mph.Īlthough this performance doesn't move the Pathfinder to the top of the SUV performance heap, the improvement is welcome, even though we don't plan to drag-race our SUVs. That the Pathfinder could do as well as it did with such an absence of cojones speaks to how fond we were of the rest of the package.Įven though it received a face lift midway through the 1999 model year, the reason we haven't revisited the Pathfinder since then is because we haven't had a compelling reason to. That's especially impressive for the Toyota, which, unlike the Ford and Jeep, but like the Nissan, was powered by a V-6. Quite a bit slower, in several cases -the V-8 in the Jeep gave it a best-in-class 9.1-second 0-to-60 time, with the Ford and Toyota tied for second at 9.5 seconds. Its shortcoming was the engine -a weak-willed 3.3-liter V-6 that gave the Pathfinder a 0-to-60 mph time of 11 seconds, a tenth of a second faster than the portly Land Rover, but slower than the other five SUVs. The Toyota won, with the Pathfinder a reasonably close second, bolstered by its "creamy off-road ride," its "high-quality feel," and its surprising sure-footedness when creeping along a rocky trail. ![]() That was a comparison test between seven sport utes -the just-restyled Pathfinder, the Acura SLX, Ford Explorer XLT, Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited, Land Rover Discovery, Oldsmobile Bravada, and Toyota 4Runner SR5. Thumbing through the Car and Driver archives, we have to look way back to April 1996 for the most recent comprehensive review of a Nissan Pathfinder. ![]()
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