Any 3rd gen owners come from or now behind the wheel of a Frontier?

What's wrong with that?

 

Do it

I drive around with tools in my truck. Is there some sort of shame in that sir?

 

LOL this is perfect. "Too many people in my area use those trucks as trucks". Gotta be the most pretentious things I've read on here, and that's saying something.

 

Not everyone has a Yeti cooler full of bespoke craft beer and some fit woman flexing in yoga pants in the bed in Big Bear

 

I bought a 04 kc 4x manual trans and beat the tar out of it until 16. That was probably but hopefully not the best vehicle I will ever own.

 

I sold my 2008 XTerra to get into my Tacoma. Certainly far less bs with the Toyota, reliability-wise. I had a timing chain guide shatter and get jammed in the water pump pulley, the block took a little damage but not enough to be trashed. I found leaky oil gallery gaskets while fixing that, but the replacements aren’t available through Nissan, and the oil gallery covers are held on by warm butter quality Philips head screws. So I couldn’t find gaskets, and when I eventually did, I wasn’t confident I could get the covers off, so I chose to ignore it. The Nissan had some rust issues, as well. It did have 168k on it when I sold it, I put about 45k on in a little over two years, but to the tune of roughly 3 grand in parts. A simple 2” spacer lift quickly snowballed into strut assemblies, upper and lower control arms, front hubs, and CV’s because of rust on everything. A quick brake job turned into replacing pads, rotors, and calipers, also because of rust. One of the rear axle seals eventually began leaking and puked gear oil into the DS parking brake, which always a huge mess.
The upside is the XTerra was more fun to drive. Mine was a 6speed and was an absolute fucking blast to drive. This also meant it didn’t suffer from the pervasive “SMOD” nightmare (google it, cringe-worthy.) It felt a LOT quicker than my Tacoma, and the pedal placement was perfect for heel-toe downshifts, which are nearly impossible in the Tacoma. The O/R package had some cool bells and whistles. The rear locker would engage in 2wd, 4-hi, or 4-low, which I will miss a little bit. It was pretty rad off road, kept up with a stock 4th gen 4Runner and decently modified Ranger that two of my friends have. After the 2” strut spacer and AAL and a set of 33” WildPeak AT’s, it outwheeled my girlfriends JK Rubicon handily, and I would bet money that it would have kept up with or outwheeled my friend’s 4th gen 4Runner that by that time a 3” lift and 33” MTR’s, had I gotten a chance to wheel with him before selling for the Tacoma. Haven’t had the Tacoma in the woods yet, so I can’t compare them head to head yet, but the shorter wheelbase, better approach and departure angles, and shorter overall length make me think the XTerra would take the cake off road.
All that being said, I briefly considered replacing my 08 XTerra OR with a 15 Pro4X XTerra or Frontier, but just didn’t trust the Nissan reliability or resale value as much as Toyota’s. I’m also not sure Nissan does a full 4 door cab on the Pro4X Frontier with a short bed, and I really wanted a manual, which went away. Overall, the Tacoma is a far nicer truck and I do not at all regret my decision.

 

Who needs a cooler when you can have all of this built in luxury? I doubt that you will find any construction happening with one of these. LOL

 

Had 2 frontiers before the taco. Both were fantastic trucks. Had the first one for 6 years and the second for 11 years, now owned by stepdad. Absolutely zero problems with either truck. So much cheaper than the yota. Would have bought another instead but the interior looked exactly the same as my 2006 and just wanted something a little nicer this time. Really, really solid trucks though.

 

The weird thing is my wife has a Nissan Altima when I met her. Terrible unreliable car we quickly traded for an older-but-better Camry. The most notable thing about the car was the poor turning radius. It took like a 45-point turn to reverse directions on a standard road.

it must be a Nissan thing. Maybe their test track is all straight-aways?

 

I had a new 16 frontier SE 2wd. super fast and drove and shifted like how a normal vehicle should. Great street truck, sucked in dirt.

 

But why not?!

 

We keep around a Frontier for off-road fun stuff and a Tacoma for short trips around town. Both are enjoyable.

 

That's a nice rig dude. I wanted the pro4x bad.

 

I considered the frontier, and the lower end models seem to have significantly better value than Tacoma. But I did want a crew cab 6 cylinder 4X4. The price difference (MSRP) between the Pro-4X and my TRD Offroad was only like $3K, so I went with Toyota. I didn't get far enough to try to negotiate with Nissan, so maybe they would have taken more off the sticker price than Toyota did.

 

My '10 Pro-4x has been great, it's a 4.0L, 6spd king cab. The only repair it's needed was an axle seal. Good seating position and visibility, excellent drivetrain, 18.5mpg average but see 22-23 on long trips. I love that it came with 265/75R16 ATs and the 3.69 gears to turn them.

My parents just bought a '19 Pro-4x, crew cab, automatic with the luxury package. I had a chance to drive it and it's an awesome truck, I could easily see myself buying one in the next few years. I know the more loaded ones are harder on fuel with the added weight, roof rack and the automatic but I can live with that.

 

The transmission itself is very robust, same as what was in the 5.6L Titan and several other Nissan trucks. From 05-09 There was a bad run of radiators that allowed coolant to enter the transmission through the trans cooler. They solved the issue by 2010, the 4.0L's timing chain guides were also revised at the same time.

 

Also I don't know about the more current gen Frontiers, but the aftermarket parts availability on my 02 sucked balls. Pretty much only 2 decent lift options unless you wanted to go with the Total Chaos kit, which was bug money and not bolt on, and that's if you could find one!!

 

I wouldn't mind having one as a DD, and keep the miles off the Taco. Strange enough the most common truck in my local area is a Dakota.

 

There's quite a bit available for the 2nd gen Frontier. It was sold globally and shared a frame with many Nissan/Infiniti models. Common upgrade is Titan LCAs, Titan front diff with aftermarket UCAs, tie rod ends, coilovers and axles. You gain 6" of track width and a good 4" of travel. You can swap in the 5.6L V8 if you want, it came in the Pathfinder for awhile which had bigger brakes and front axles, it all bolts right onto the Frontier.