Don't Buy Nissan in 2022: Here's why…

If it weren’t for Honda’s trajectory, Nissan Australia’s future would be more predictable than the sun setting, based on the new product range. Here’s why 2022 could be Nissan’s beginning of the end…

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Were it not for Honda Australia going down the toilet, sales wise >> it’s absolutely unquestionable that Nissan is Australia’s least aspirational Japanese carmaker. I was beginning to think they were out of ideas.

But that’s all changed now - they’re going full ‘Joan Rivers’ for the second half of 2022. That should be a really funny six months ahead, on the balance of probability. Here’s why…

In my view, Nissan Australia has given virtually every vehicle in its line-up the best nip and tuck possible, like the full Expendables treatment to the Navara, a proper brow-lift and structural rhinoplasty to the Patrol 4WD and is now wrinkle-free, they’ve tried really hard to firm up the Pathfinder despite an antiquated ticker underneath - and of course the Juke remains the sad result of a bad design idea trying to reinvent itself.

Nissan right now, as a brand, is struggling just to stay relevant. Like a big-name actor who hasn’t quite realised they’re late to the Netflix party. The sales results aren’t promising either.

Nissan Australia inserted itself into the news, with some interesting (let’s call them) ‘allegations’, recently.

In my somewhat humble view, that’s a pretty interesting take on the epistemology of being all-new in a particular year. According to ‘facts’, the Navara, which is, in fact, Nissan’s top-selling vehicle here, was mildly facelifted in July last year. So it was partly new, last year.

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This from 2018 became...

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...this from early 2021.

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And STILL with coil rear springs.

Hardly grounds for all-newness this year, is it?

And essentially, Patrol is a decades-old design - partly new, again, more than a year and a half ago. The Juke is one of the more ‘inclusive’ vehicles on Australian roads, it’s more than two years old at this juncture. The Leaf is the same old Gen-2 cut-corners almost-prototype that hasn’t really been new since 2017, if memory serves. Even at launch it still wasn’t ‘new’, per se, because they still didn’t bother designing active battery thermal management.

The Qashquat (or whatever it’s called) is just a rebadged Renault, as is the X-Trail just a Koleos.

So if that’s an all-new lineup, OK. Well done with the upcoming brand-wide newness. Can’t wait.

Real talk, OK: The facts matter. Nissan is on an established commercial trajectory downward. Nissan needs Honda to make its sales performance appear less catastrophic. (So thanks very much, Honda.) See, according to the FCAI, Nissan was selling almost 68,000 vehicles here in 2011. And they cruised more or less at this altitude for the next five or so years. 

But then word got around, incrementally, that innovation was (let’s be kind) ‘glacial’. Some would say ‘nonexistent’. The in-house CVT transmissions from 75 per cent Nissan-owned Jatco were dogs with fleas, with lice on the fleas, and pox on the lice. Same design philosophy was used in the batteries for the Gen-1 Leaf, apparently - and these kinds of R&D ‘own goals’ bit a  lot of early adopters on the buttocks.

So, over the intervening five or so years, sales fell from about mid-60,000s to about 40,000 last year … and they’re roughly 34 per cent down on that, this year. So, on track for about 26,000 sales. Maybe 30,000 if this alleged ‘all-newness’ gives them a boost.

Approximate Nissan sales in Australia

New Pathfinder, same old petrol V6.

I’m not hopeful. Take allegedly all-new Pathfinder - a kind of lardy-arsed Kluger competitor with essentially the same tired, old 3.5 V6 as the current one (gotta rev it hard to perform, and then it drinks fuel like a sailor), 2WD or all-wheel-drive … but they have at least ditched the awful CVT in favour of a new epicyclic nine-speed auto, according to them.

I dunno about you, but the term ‘new Nissan transmission’ would be enough to strike terror into the heart of someone such as me, if I suffered a brain aneurism and actively considered buying a vehicle such as that.

Still, the Nissan pricktease machine is up and running, and there is exciting new technology on offer, such as Nissan ProPILOT, which sounds vaguely pornographic (certainly the kind of thing that costs extra), but about which Nissan is oddly reassuring:

That’s just one pricktease from Nissan’s website today. ProPILOT seems to me to be intelligently designed to motivate you to goof off behind the wheel in situations where you have acquired enough energy to kill someone (possibly yourself) and in which you really should be paying attention.

I’m really not looking forward to the boost in ambient driving negligence flowing from systems such as ProPILOT. And of course we might as well lift up the skirt and see what Nissan’s lawyers actually say about that, in the disclaimer fine print.

Hmmmm. Sounds mildly half-baked, in the domain of implementation. More like AmateurPILOT. UnqualifiedPILOT. Not-a-realPILOT.

Look - all I’m saying is that Nissan is clearly failing in Australia, with an established commercial trajectory to nowhere over several years, even though Honda may be paving the way. 

They’re also short on innovation and reliability not just my opinion - Mia Bevacqua there is an ASE-certified master automobile technician as well as chief mechanic and technical writer at CarParts.com - and (bonus points) she reminds me of two of my five ex-wives. They were good on the tools, too.

Nissan is presently big on hype, and the pricktease machine is on the redline for the next few months, almost certainly. So, if you find yourself getting seduced by this alleged “new era” of “redefining how we move” my advice would be - at its most mild: Wait six to 12 months and quantify this alleged ‘all-newness’s’ propensity for in-trou poopy, before proceeding.

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