Learn me Nissan Frontier

I had '98 Tacoma (4cylinder, 5speed manual Extended Cab) that I sold off a while ago. When I wanted to get another 'small' truck it was toss up between 1 gen behind current Tacoma or the D40 Frontier... but wanted V6 and 6 speed manual. Then having experience with my Dad's newer Tacoma and not really liking it as much as my previous 1st gen Tacoma decided Tacoma was out of the running. D40 Frontier it was... better driving position and chassis, more torque than the Tacomas, fully-boxed frame, utilitrack system, a better truck looks to me. Found 1 of only 2 in the country at the time which met my requirements (4.0L V6, 6spd manual, 2WD, and King Cab) and did a fly'n'drive and had a nice trip bringing it home from North Carolina.... Raleigh to Houston. '13 SV with 81k miles on it when I bought it.

I've now had it for just over 3 years and won't even think of getting rid of it, like it much better than my previous 1st gen Tacoma... 1st of all never going back to anemic 4 cylinder trucks after experiencing the 4.0L VQ... will flat out spank my FR-S to 80mph... pulls like a freight train to ~90mph where aerodynamics start taking over and slowing things down. The size and weight just seems about right, wouldn't want it any larger or heavier.

Stock suspension was a little tired feeling... have refreshed suspension with a full OME (Old Man Emu) offroad suspension kit to get a little bit better clearance and man what a difference in ride quality, much more buttoned down and quicker to change direction while being lifted around 2.5". Ride very much reminds me of my FR-S... very taught and direct feeling but soaks up bumps well. I even did a little 'Prerunning' on some desert trails with it to test it out and man... at ~90 mph on primative gravel, light silt, and slightly wash-boarded surface it was almost as good a ride as cruising on the highway....  and took some air with about a foot or two jump at 65 just past a cattle-guard with ease. The Kumho Crugen HT51 tires I run not only are excellent highway cruising tires but do EXTREMELY well on loose dirt/gravel/light silt... Cannot recommend those tires enough... simply awesome tires!

The main weaknesses it has stock are it's brakes and headlights... and seat. The brakes always felt just not quite good enough, which was fixed via switching to Hawk LTS pads and new Centric rotors. The poorer than average visibility with factory lighting (which FR-S also shares) was fixed via a Diode Dynamics HID conversion kit.  With the HIDs, cruising at 90mph on Interstate at night you can clearly see 3 seconds or road ahead, with highbeams on nearly 6 seconds of road (not counting reflectors on the side of the road... which clearly light up over 1/2 mile away, some 22-26 seconds.) Am looking to go with a nice projector beam conversion after experiencing updated lighting on my FR-S via LED bulbs in the stock projector housing... much superior to HID setup with reflector headlights...just freaking expensive. I actually just installed new fog lights on my Frontier this evening, as a recent trip back from Austin about a month ago resulted in my drivers side fog light being hit and shattered by something. The new lights (Diode Dynamic SS3 Sport) are MASSIVE improvement... very tight and narrow in height with WIDE throw... talking absolutely lighting up things 50+ feet directly to either side in an 80 degree spread with the SS3 fog light housing/optics.

The factory seat in my Frontier is as good as my factory Tacoma seat was... which is to say it's pretty bad for comfort. Any trip over 20-30 minutes starts hurting. Most all stock vehicles seats suck for comfort for me, which is why they eventually get replaced with something I know works for my body. I've yet to replace the Frontier seat, but have it's replacement ready to go - just need to fabricate mounting bracket for it.

Have not had any issues with my Frontier other than having a complete failure of the brake system about a year ago. Think it was just the master cylinder that went out... had this happen before on another used car I bought (Acura Integra). Thankfully with a manual transmission you can efficiently engine brake to a stop. Went ahead and had dealership 'take care' of it since there was a recall/service bulletin for SRS system recalibration to prevent accidental discharge under certain circumstances (related to high pitch angles and rough terrain) I wanted them to do. Dealership had their one chance and seriously blew it... that Nissan Dealership will never get my business again for anything. It took several months to source the ABS actuator they claimed it needed after they checked over the brake system and told me the master cylinder was fine (I told them pretty much thought it was the master cylinder gone out), destroyed my nearly brand new Hawker Odyssey battery from negligence (ran it down to 3 volts...), had the gall to say I had a bad battery and needed to buy one from them, and once they got the ABS actuator installed... what do you know... they had to replace the Master cylinder as well since braking wasn't what it should be.

So other than the dealership, the experience with my Frontier has been pretty good and I wouldn't trade it for any Tacoma.

What's the deal with the supercharged ones?  Worth getting, or just added complication for minimal hp gains?

Im glad there's some appreciation out there for old Nissan trucks as hoon-mobiles. A 4.0 Frontier and a 5.6 Titan are both hilariously quick when you're doing things you shouldn't with them.  

In reply to docwyte :

Dont bother with the older supercharged ones, they were the vg33 v6. It went from 170hp to 220 or so supercharged.  Also back then it seemed the superchargers lost their mojo at about 100k miles and needed rebuilt.

 The newer vQ v6 started at 240 hp. In the frontier i think its good for 260 if i remember right. Its no sports car, but i feel its pretty quick for what it is. I really dont find myself wishing for more power with the Vq. 

In reply to TJL :

Ok and they got the VQ in 2007?

2005. 

Too bad you are looking for a quad cab because this looks like a great one at the high end of the budget in longmont.

https://denver.craigslist.org/cto/d/longmont-2005-nissan-frontier-le-low/7103280813.html

In reply to bmw88rider (Forum Supporter) :

That is a low miles, clean truck.  I'd prefer a quad cab but I could probably stick my son in the back of an extended cab.  Just the timing sucks, I'm not buying anything until I'm back in the office working for at least a month so I can figure out what sort of income I'm going to have.

docwyte said:

In reply to bmw88rider (Forum Supporter) :

That is a low miles, clean truck.  I'd prefer a quad cab but I could probably stick my son in the back of an extended cab.  Just the timing sucks, I'm not buying anything until I'm back in the office working for at least a month so I can figure out what sort of income I'm going to have.

If you want the rear for any kind of regular passenger use I would highly recommend the Crew Cab (CC) over the King Cab (KC). The rear of the Frontier KC gives up a few inches interior room to a Tacoma extended cab, and the rear of a Tacoma extended cab isn't the most pleasant thing to sit in (my dad has an '07 Tacoma that I'd much rather sit in the back of than my '13 Frontier). I've thought about doing a 'reverse' McLaren F1 seating arrangement for my Frontier KC - removing the rear jump seats, and the back storage part of center console and placing a fixed-back seat in the middle of the rear. That's about the only way someone could be decently comfortable sitting in the back of a Frontier KC...

Coworkers will NEVER ask for you to drive for lunch again after one time in the back... The Frontier KC has about as good a rear as the FR-S... good for storing some things in-cab, not good for transporting passengers comfortably. My 10 year-old nephew is too big to comfortably fit in the rear of my Frontier anymore... and he's a small, thin kid.

So in casual poking around it looks like the Nissan Titan is just as cheap, if not sometimes cheaper than the Frontier.  Seems like much win to me, V8 power, larger tow capacity etc.  Why are these around the same $5-7k as the Frontier?

Really it's just the size. Titans just are not that popular so they are cheap. Nissan's in general are the value buy. 

In reply to bmw88rider (Forum Supporter) :

I'm not gonna park either in the garage, so I might as well get the larger v8 truck to begin with. 

The titans are nice. Especially before they redesigned them. They are quite quick too. Going to be the similar bad mileage, maybe actually a hair better if you drive it easy, but whats the point in having a fast truck and driving slow? I still kinda want a 2015 titan for the interior change, but i really do not NEED a full size. The maneuverability of the "mid size" or "small" truck is a nice advantage. And off road i really feel the weight difference between the f-150 crew work truck and my crew 2012 frontier. 

The GRM take. Honestly, they're fine trucks if you can find one for cheap. Which I expect you'll be able to. 

2.0dohc said:

I've had my 2011 for about 5 years and 60ish thousand miles.  Quad cab with the Pro-4X package(v6 auto 4x4).  Only issue I have is an occasional check engine light for small evap leak, clear the code and it's gone for months.  I had towed my trailer (7x16 double axle enclosed) with about 4.5K of cargo, little slow on big hills.  If I keep the speed under 75 I get about 17.5mpg. 

Would go back and buy it again.

 

When the axle seals fail, Nissan will tell you they are only serviced as a complete rearend assembly.  The Proforks has a different rearend than non-RockShox models.

If you pull it apart, you will be able to match up numbers and get seals and bearings, if you would rather wait a week or so than spend something silly like $4k on a new rear.

The vents on both frontiers and titans seem prone to plugging up,probably the leading cause of axle seal leakage.

 Had the rear brakes apart on my titan at christmas,had some oil on the parking brake shoe...bugger.

 Changing rear end lube at the same time,cracked the filler 1st and had a rush of pressure....bugger.

 Drained and refilled,pulled the vent and it was plugged so I tossed it and simply threaded a hose barb in and ran a hose up over and back down from a box crossmember and put a fuel filter on it.

 I don't offroad or drive thru rivers deeper then the box so don't see it letting water in.

A perfect truck popped up on my local moto forum, Nissan Titan Crewcab, $4500, 165k miles.  All maintenance good.  Ugh!!

My office is closed by the Mayor until at least May 4th.  Can't buy anything until at least a few weeks after I've been open so I can assess what my cash flow is going to be like.

I pinged the seller and he's hot for a new truck, which I totally understand.  Gonna have to let this one go past me.  Sigh, timings a bitch!

Titans are nice.  I bought an '08 2wd Crew Cab last year.  

PROS: 

-The most spacious truck cab you will ever find short of a Dodge Mega Cab.  I'm 6'1" and drive with my seat most of the way back, and I can fit my kid's rear facing seat behind me with room to spare.  

-Driving dynamics are decent for a full-size truck.  The V8 has plenty of grunt.

CONS:

-Rattles and squeaks

-Unwieldy and huge.  It bothers me more than I thought it would.  I cross-shopped Frontiers, and liked the size on them a lot more for day-to-day use.  

-Thirsty, but not really any thirstier than most other full-size pickups