With former Ram honcho Fred Diaz at the wheel, Nissan is starting to replace its outdated truck line with more modern products.
A couple of years ago, at about the same time that Ram parent, Fiat-Chrysler America, stopped investing in research and development of its flourishing Ram division, Nissan lured Diaz to revive its flagging truck division. As Ram CEO, he was the genius behind Ram's great rides, eye-popping interiors and soaring market share.
At Nissan, Diaz took over a truck division badly in need of leadership and vision. The full-size Titan had not undergone a serious redesign since its 2004 introduction, and the midsize Frontier had been neglected nearly as long.
This week, Nissan announced a new Frontier generation will be built in the same Canton, Miss. Plant where it builds the Murano, Titan and NV commercial vans. The company released few details.
Last year, Diaz freshened up the Titan and sparked a sharp uptick in sales.
To design, test and bring to market a new vehicle can take up to five years and billions of dollars, but Diaz needed results sooner than that, so he dug around in Nissan's parts bins. One thing he found was some terrific suspension components in the commercial vans, the NVs. Diaz knew there was a soft spot in in the market between light-duty pickups, like the F-150 and Silverado, and heavy-duty trucks, which are longer, wider, heavier and can haul things like four-horse trailers, small yachts and huge campers.
So Nissan modified and stretched its fully boxed ladder frame to a 151.6-inch wheelbase that can accommodate a standard crew-cab layout and a 6.5-foot bed. Add in the NV suspension components and, voila, a light-duty pickup with nearly the same ability as a half-ton pickup.
Thus was born the Titan XD.
Heads started to turn when Diaz went to his old friends at Cummins Diesel and wangled a supply of 5.0-Liter V-8 power plants, which make 310 hp and 555 lb-ft of torque.
That's less than the heavy-duty diesels from Chevy, Ford and Ram, but considerably more than the work champ of the quarter-ton world, the Ram 1500 diesel V6 (240 hp and 420 lb-ft).
The Ram 1500 diesel's towing capacity tops out at 8,870 pounds, while typical 2500-series HD diesels can tow 14,000 to 17,000 pounds. That's a big gap, and the XD hits a sweet spot with a max towing capacity of 12,314 pounds.
Compared to the heavy-duty pickups, the SD costs less and comes with the world's best truck warranty: 5 years, 100,000 miles.
On the other hand, Nissan's first foray into the diesel world is far from optimal. For example, the Titan's base engine, a 390-horsepower 5.6-liter Endurance V8 gasoline engine standard mated to a 7-speed automatic transmission, is a quick, slick-shifting, sweet-driving machine.
It is quiet, smooth, and, when teamed with new Titan's quiet, well-appointed interior, is right in the ball game with the best pickups on the road.
The Cummins diesel, however, feels smallish for the big truck and there is something clunky about the powertrain.
Whether the six-speed automatic has gaps in ratios, or is not as well-engineered as the rest of the truck, we can't say, but the thing sounds like a school bus, and shifts like one, too. Zero-to-60 took most of Saturday and part of Sunday.
For the $5,000 upcharge, a buyer gets roughly an additional 1,000 pounds of towing capacity.
Is the XD a good deal? One must read reams of spec pages to figure this out, but a well-equipped, regular cab, diesel-powered, 4WD Nissan runs around $43,070. Add niceties like running boards, spray-on bed liner, 20-inch wheels, rear monitors and parking sensors (which it really needs), a 110-volt outlet and Nissan's nifty track system for tying things down, and you're north of $45,000.
A similarly equipped Super Duty F-250, for example, will sticker around $2,000 to $3,000 more, but for that, you get more payload and a greater towing capacity.
Our tester. a crew-cab Texas Titan, came with chrome on just about every flat surface: inner and outer grille finish, 20-inch chrome aluminum-alloy wheels, metallic-finish kick plates, badged floor mats, chrome exhaust finishers. Nissan says the package would cost $3,750 if sold separately, but sells it for $1,250.
There is a catch. The package requires the purchase of the SV Comfort and Convenience package for $2,530.
That gets you automatic headlights, body-color rear bumper, captain's chairs up front, fog lights, running boards, heated front seats and more.
Our tester, a turbodiesel Texas Titan XD SV crew cab, topped out a hair north of $52,000. At that, it was a nicely equipped, handsome truck. We think a gas-powered version for $47,000 is the goldilocks bowl of porridge in this lineup.
The EPA does not rate these things, but the last time we tooled a half-ton Ford around town we got around 18 mpg. We averaged a little better than 16 with the Titan XD.
You and I can sit down over a glass of ice tea and argue this value proposition all day, but it really would not matter. The XD gave Nissan something to show fleet buyers, and in that context, it makes tons of sense. When one is buying a thousand of something, a thousand dollars per unit equals a million bucks.
Diaz' strategy seems to be working. So far this year Nissan has sold nearly 25,000 Titans. To be sure, that is 1/16 of the number of trucks Ford has sold, but it's four times more than what Nissan sold in the first half of 2016.
Let's see, you quadrupled sales without retooling the factory? OK, you get to hang around.
Bottom line: Keep an eye on Nissan trucks the next few years. While Ram treads water, Diaz is putting the wind in Nissan's sails. And sales.