Nissan wanted a more hardcore version of the Navara dual-cab ute, but didn't want to wait for the next Navara engineering cycle to make it happen. So Nissan Australia teamed up with an Australian engineering company to develop a warranted version of the Navara that would be more capable off-road. Paul Maric tests the 2021 Nissan Navara N-Trek Warrior to see if it's as good as its tough exterior suggests it is!
This car is designed to be a competitor to the Ford Ranger Raptor, the Toyota HiLux Rugged X and is indicative of the type of 4x4 modifications you could expect if you tried to do some of this as part of aftermarket off-road upgrades.
Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More Nissan content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/nissan
More Nissan Navara content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/nissan/navara
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:51
Interior: 04:15
Infotainment: 05:15
Safety Tech: 06:26
Practicality: 07:05
On-road: 09:41
Off-road: 12:36
Verdict: 15:47
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
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#nissan #review #navara @Nissan @NissanAustralia
This car is designed to be a competitor to the Ford Ranger Raptor, the Toyota HiLux Rugged X and is indicative of the type of 4x4 modifications you could expect if you tried to do some of this as part of aftermarket off-road upgrades.
Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More Nissan content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/nissan
More Nissan Navara content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/nissan/navara
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:51
Interior: 04:15
Infotainment: 05:15
Safety Tech: 06:26
Practicality: 07:05
On-road: 09:41
Off-road: 12:36
Verdict: 15:47
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#nissan #review #navara @Nissan @NissanAustralia
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So everyone's familiar with the Nissan Navara, and Nissan in Australia wanted a big beefy Navara to compete with cars like the Ford Ranger Raptor and the Toyota Hilux Rugged X.
00:11 Except, they didn't want to wait until the next model rolled around. So, they employed an Australian company to come up with something far more hardcore, and they've come up with this.
00:21 It's called the Nissan Navara N-Trek Warrior. Bit of a cheesy name, but it has a whole bunch of goodies to make off-road driving even better.
00:29 It's priced at just under $66,000 here for the automatic version.
00:34 Today, we're going to do a detailed review with just a little bit of off-roading.
00:37 If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, use the time codes up on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, scroll down, use the chapters below.
00:44 And if you haven't done so already, hit subscribe and also the bell icon that'll tell you every single time we test a Warrior.
00:50 So what are you getting with your Warrior? You can pick from three different colours, and all but black is an extra $650.
00:57 You get this steel bumper at the front. It's body-coloured, but there's a problem with it.
01:00 While it does look cool, a couple of very minor stone chips will start to develop into rust.
01:07 So, it gives me an idea that perhaps this isn't painted very well or doesn't have that protection under the paint, and that's going to become a problem because stone chips are pretty easy to pick up.
01:15 You get this LED light bar at the front. 35 watts. It measures 470 millimetres in width.
01:21 Now, if we jump down here, you can see some proper stainless steel protection under the front there.
01:27 It's 3 millimetres thick, and that's going to prevent you from hitting rocks and damaging the engine as you traverse some of that rough terrain.
01:34 This whole front end really looks quite nice, especially in this colour offset with the black.
01:38 It just looks nice and tough, and I think they've done a really good job with that.
01:42 LED headlights with LED daytime running lights. You get this orange highlight around the fog lights.
01:47 And if we jump around to the side...
01:49 Now, this is some fairly serious rubber. Up the top here, you have these whopping big wheel arch protectors.
01:55 They look like they've literally just been bolted into there. That looks really cool.
01:59 These tyres are interesting because they are all-terrain tyres. They're 32.2 inches. It's a Cooper-branded tyre, but they wear this LT designation.
02:06 That means light truck. So, you've got more rubber and steel inside that construction.
02:10 It's going to be stronger for off-roading and kind of more adventurous type of driving you'd expect to do with this.
02:15 17-inch wheels that are unique to this car. These allow the wheel track to be 30mm wider.
02:21 So, this has a wider stance on the road. Also lowers its centre of gravity as well, which means it's going to be better when it comes to off-road driving.
02:27 Now, let's talk suspension changes. The Navara obviously comes with a coil sprung rear suspension setup instead of leaf springs.
02:34 So, that stays, but what they've done up the front here is they've installed softer and taller coil springs.
02:40 So, that's going to mean a softer damping to that ride.
02:42 The shock absorber is a twin-tube design, 35mm front and rear.
02:46 And also, the bump stops over here are thicker and softer as well.
02:50 So, it should mean that that top end of the impact is reduced and it really just gradually softens out this ride.
02:56 In fact, it should drive like the Ranger Raptor, which is one of the leaders in this segment because you can literally attack anything in it and you barely feel anything inside the cabin.
03:05 So, I'll be keen to see how this all goes with this off-road focus setup.
03:08 Okay, let's talk about the rest of the car. You've got these whopper sidesteps here with more orange highlights.
03:14 A little bit more orange highlight on the wing mirror with the indicator built in.
03:18 The 360 camera sits there as well.
03:20 Privacy glass, you get these black roof rails.
03:23 Black sports bar.
03:24 There's a cool looking Warrior decal here.
03:26 Come around to the back.
03:27 Have a look at this spoiler thing they've integrated into the top.
03:29 So, it's flat at the top there, but it kind of curves around.
03:32 It looks pretty good, I reckon.
03:33 Navara down the bottom there, just in case you forget what you're driving.
03:36 This retains a 3.5 tonne towing capacity, but a reduced payload, which I'll run you through in a second.
03:42 Now, how much space have you got to work with here?
03:45 Load length comes in at 1503mm.
03:48 There's 1560mm of load width and 1130mm between the wheel arches.
03:53 But payload is reduced from 917kg to 724kg because of all the bits they've added onto it.
04:01 But inside the tray here, you get these hooks on the sides.
04:04 You get this adjustable racking system.
04:07 So, just pull that out of the way.
04:08 Set it into the position you want.
04:10 And, this is pretty cool, you have a 12-volt outlet.
04:14 It looks waterproof as well.
04:15 So, we're inside the Navara.
04:17 Let's kick off with the key.
04:18 Nissan logo at the top.
04:19 Lock, unlock, a blank at the bottom, and then nothing on the back.
04:22 It's a proximity sensing key, so you just keep that in your pocket.
04:25 Grab the door handle to unlock it, and then you have the push button start in here.
04:29 What about styling?
04:30 Well, it is a little bit bland.
04:31 This car was released back when, I don't know, utes were all about being rugged,
04:35 and that's why everything is really quite scratchy and hard around the place.
04:39 There is a facelift coming for the Navara, and I think they will address a lot of this
04:43 like they have with other cars in the range.
04:45 And in terms of touch points, that's all nice and soft, and so is the door section.
04:50 Steering wheel's nicely padded too, so all of the bits you're regularly in contact with
04:54 are nice and comfortable.
04:55 Now, how hard is all of this stuff around the car and the touch points?
04:59 Well, we've got our durometer for that.
05:01 We've tested all of these surfaces, and you'll be able to use the link in the description
05:04 below to compare the Navara to other cars in this segment.
05:07 Finally, build quality, it all actually feels really good.
05:11 I have tested a few of these and never really had too many dramas.
05:15 Okay, moving on to infotainment.
05:18 Nissan uses an 8-inch infotainment system that has been updated for the Navara.
05:22 If you want a detailed review of this, you can click on the link up here to watch that,
05:26 but today I'll take you through a brief overview.
05:28 So, it's a colour touchscreen, and then on the menu here you can flick between the different
05:32 sections.
05:33 You have AM and FM radio, there's no DAB digital there, and then you have in-built
05:38 satellite navigation.
05:39 You also have smartphone mirroring in the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as
05:45 well.
05:46 Let me show you what that looks like.
05:47 So, you can see full screen integration, nice and quick as well, and the best bit is that
05:51 it interacts with voice recognition.
05:53 So, when you push the button on the steering wheel, you can use the native voice recognition
05:56 or just pass it through to the phone, which will use the cloud to get all of that information,
06:00 and I'll show you what Android Auto looks like on the screen.
06:03 So, again, full screen integration.
06:04 We'll go into Maps, have a little look there.
06:07 Pretty decent, nice and fast as well.
06:09 There's also a six-speaker sound system, and in terms of connectivity, you've got your
06:13 Bluetooth here, no CD player, USB connectivity down the bottom, but remember that is for
06:17 the smartphone mirroring, which is driven by a cable, auxiliary, then you have a 12
06:21 volt up the top, a 12 volt here, and then another 12 volt in the centre console.
06:26 Let's talk safety.
06:27 So, the Navara is pretty behind a lot of its competitors now.
06:30 There's no autonomous emergency braking, no blind spot monitoring here, no lane keeping
06:35 assistant.
06:36 There really isn't a great deal going on, which is a bit disappointing, but there is
06:39 an update coming to Navara, which is likely to bring those things, but you do get an auto-dimming
06:45 rear vision mirror with compass and a 360 degree camera.
06:48 Let's have a look at what that looks like.
06:50 So, here it is here.
06:51 Look, it looks okay, but it's so poxy in terms of the resolution.
06:55 It's just not very sharp, and at night time it's a little hard to see, but you do get
06:59 full coverage around the car with rear parking sensors, no front parking sensors, but you
07:02 have a camera that looks at all of those sides as well.
07:05 Okay, what about practicality?
07:06 We'll start with storage.
07:07 Where are you going to put your phone?
07:09 So, it fits sort of up the front here a little bit.
07:12 It is grippy, so it's not going to slide away too much, but no wireless phone charging.
07:17 It does fit into the drink holder slot as well nicely.
07:20 Now, what about our bottle?
07:22 Let's have a look at that.
07:24 Perfectly fits into there, and then inside the door you've got bottle storage plus room
07:27 for odds and ends.
07:29 Center console, it's a weird shape.
07:31 It's quite deep, but sort of not very wide.
07:33 Gives you an idea of how deep it is.
07:36 Glove box.
07:37 Yeah, it sort of doesn't really work when you've got the manual in there, but you do
07:41 have these things for storing your bottle in front of the heater if it's a hot drink
07:46 or a cold drink, and then sunglasses storage up the top, and then nook up the front for
07:52 papers and bits and pieces.
07:53 Also, adjacent to your knee and also the passenger side, you have this little storage nook.
07:58 Let me see if that fits a phone.
07:59 There you go.
08:00 Phone storage.
08:01 In terms of comfort, you have dual zone automatic climate control, heated seats with two settings.
08:07 The seats are interesting.
08:08 They've got like leather and then this cloth material.
08:10 They look pretty cool with that orange stitching.
08:13 You do get highlights in here like N-Trek Warrior.
08:15 There's also electric seat adjustment for the driver's seat.
08:18 The passenger seat is manually adjusted, and they're fairly comfortable as well.
08:22 The only thing I don't like here, the steering wheel, yes, it sits nicely in the hand, but
08:25 you only have tilt adjustment.
08:28 There's no reach.
08:29 It won't go in or out, so you're kind of locked into that position, unfortunately, but outside
08:33 of that, all of your controls are easy to reach, and you don't really need to take your
08:37 eyes too far off the road to do basic functions.
08:39 Righto, back seat, before I hop in and show you how much room there is, let's have a look
08:44 at storage.
08:45 So this pops up.
08:46 That'll attach to the top tether as well if you do want a flat floor, and you have a little
08:50 bit of storage under here, the jack taking up all of that space, and a couple of other
08:53 bits and pieces in there, so not a great deal of storage.
08:56 Now this doesn't fold down like in a lot of Utes, but you do have top tether points just
09:01 here, three of them, and then ISOFIX points on the outboard seats.
09:06 Let me hop in.
09:07 Oh, by the way, I love this little window.
09:09 It slides open, and it's controlled from the front.
09:12 Setting position's interesting.
09:13 I've got knee room, but I feel like my legs are like up near my chin.
09:17 It's weird.
09:18 I don't have any toe room either, so the room here isn't fantastic, but you know, you'll
09:23 get comfortable somehow.
09:24 Headroom, pretty reasonable.
09:26 You've got air vents there as well.
09:27 No 12-volt outlet back here.
09:29 Map pockets.
09:30 Where are you going to put your bottle?
09:32 Well, there's nothing there.
09:34 Nothing there either, so you've only got the option of sticking your bottle inside the
09:38 door, which is OK.
09:40 Not amazing back here.
09:43 So we've hit the road in the Warrior, and powering this thing is a 2.3-litre, four-cylinder,
09:49 turbocharged diesel engine.
09:51 It makes 140 kilowatts of power and 450 newton metres of torque.
09:56 Looks like a groundbreaking amount, and it's now behind the main pack, which is sitting
10:00 at that 500 newton metre mark, and you kind of feel it behind the wheel because of the
10:05 extra weight this is carrying in comparison to a regular Navara.
10:09 It's about 200 kilos extra.
10:11 So let's give it a little punch here and see what it feels like.
10:16 It feels pretty lazy.
10:18 I've got my foot buried in that, and it's just sort of not really doing a great deal.
10:23 In terms of 0-100, there isn't an official quoted figure, but let's see how it goes.
10:30 [ENGINE REVVING]
10:42 In terms of transmission, it uses a seven-speed automatic.
10:46 It generally does a pretty good job, and you can override the gears manually using the
10:50 gear selector here.
10:51 There's no paddle shifters or anything like that, but for the most part, I don't think
10:54 you really need it in a ute like this.
10:57 Ahead of the driver is a small LCD display.
11:01 This displays a digital speedo, which is a good feature to have in some parts of Australia.
11:05 A little littered with speed cameras.
11:07 You've got a trip computer in there, and then also the fuel economy, which is officially
11:11 seven litres per 100 k's, but we're seeing 10.8, so it's a big step up from the advertised
11:17 figure.
11:18 Also in there, you've got a compass and a couple of other bits and pieces like audio
11:20 and settings.
11:22 This is also now one of the few utes in the segment that still uses a hydraulic steering
11:26 rack.
11:27 A lot of them have moved to EPAS, which is an electrically assisted steering rack, and
11:31 that means they can put features like lane keeping assistance, semi-automatic parking
11:35 and that kind of thing.
11:36 For the most part, it's okay.
11:38 It doesn't have a great deal of feel, and it can be quite heavy when you're trying to
11:41 park and do other low-speed things, but I think that's to be expected with a ute.
11:47 Now, in terms of ride quality, obviously the big changes here to the suspension have made
11:51 a big difference off-road.
11:52 Well, I hope they have, but they've also improved the ride experience on regular roads, and
11:58 also choppy roads like this one.
11:59 It's really smoothed it out nicely.
12:01 It's not quite as soft as something like a Ford Ranger Raptor, but for the most part,
12:05 it's really settled it.
12:06 What you used to find with the Navara, a lot of the times the front felt disconnected from
12:10 the rear, and that's because of that coil spring setup, where it all feels a little
12:13 more cohesive at the moment.
12:14 Now, what about the noise?
12:16 This engine is a tiny bit noisy.
12:18 It's not the worst in the segment, but it's definitely not the quietest, especially if
12:22 you get stuck into it.
12:23 You can really hear that noise coming in through the cabin.
12:25 But in terms of visibility, at the front, it's excellent.
12:28 You sit really high up, so you've got this commanding view over the road.
12:32 At the back, it's pretty good as well, and big wing mirrors as well, so you can see clearly
12:35 down the side.
12:36 Righto, let's talk four-wheel drive specifications.
12:40 So 35-degree approach angle, which is the angle of the face you can approach before
12:44 hitting the front of the car, and a 19-degree departure angle, which is the same, but at
12:49 the rear.
12:50 And the clearance, 268mm, so that is 40mm higher than the standard car, so you're getting
12:55 that extra bit of room before you hit things underneath the car, and a wading depth of
12:59 around 500mm.
13:00 There is also a rear differential lock as well.
13:04 So we're going to test out all of these features, and we've come to log mountain here.
13:09 So I'm going to go from 2 high into 4 low, which is just activated by turning this switch.
13:14 It's regularly just a two-wheel drive car, rear-wheel drive, if you haven't got any of
13:18 this engaged, so you put it into neutral, 4 low comes up on the display there.
13:23 Look, we probably don't need 4 low for this, but I've popped it in there anyway just so
13:27 we can test it out.
13:28 So let's give this a shot.
13:30 Alright, doesn't feel too rough in here, which is nice.
13:34 It's not lurching too much as we try and climb this.
13:37 I can hear one of those wheels slipping a little bit there.
13:41 Oh, that's interesting.
13:45 I'm not actually able to get up here.
13:48 It is a tiny bit damp, but I am surprised that with these tyres we're not actually able
13:55 to climb this.
13:56 I'll give this one more shot, maybe with a little bit more pace this time.
14:00 Alright, let's give this a crack.
14:05 Alright, here we go.
14:08 Alright, that's better.
14:12 It's a little rougher this time, and we've just passed the spot where we had trouble
14:17 last time.
14:18 Okay, so we're at the top now.
14:19 I'm going to go from 4 low to 4 high as we go over our rocks here.
14:24 This is going to give us a good idea of the amount of space we have underneath the car
14:28 and whether that 268mm is enough.
14:31 There is a hill descent control as well, so I will activate that for when we get closer
14:36 to the bottom.
14:37 Alright, pick my path here.
14:38 Let's see how we go.
14:39 Okay, this feels really good.
14:40 The brake pedal isn't overly sensitive, which is great.
14:44 It means it's not sort of lurching every single time you move and your body weight gets transferred
14:49 onto the actual pedal itself.
14:50 I'm going to drop into a rut here.
14:52 That wheel's off the ground, the back one.
14:55 This is not even touching anything underneath.
14:57 We did the D-Max here the other day and it was collecting a fair bit as we came over
15:01 these rocks, but this extra ground clearance is just making this walk over it.
15:06 And there's the hill descent control working as well, all pretty straightforward.
15:09 Okay, so we'll head over to our river crossing.
15:11 It is worth pointing out that it is wetter here today, which is what I suspect has caused
15:15 us to have traction issues on the logs.
15:17 They are seriously slippery when they get just a little bit of moisture on them.
15:20 Okay, so 500mm or thereabouts of wading depth.
15:23 This is embarrassingly shallow over here at the moment, so it's not going to look all
15:28 that impressive, but I thought we'd get a shot of it anyway.
15:31 Yeah, look, I mean this is all pretty straightforward through here.
15:34 There's no magic to it, and with so much clearance underneath this, if you do want to get any
15:40 more serious about driving through rivers and that kind of thing, you're going to need
15:44 a snorkel, but this literally just walks through it.
15:47 So Nissan Navara N-Trek Warrior.
15:49 Look, it's impressive because this isn't a factory job.
15:53 This is something that an Australian engineering firm has thrown together, and I reckon it's
15:57 most of the way there to being like a Ford Ranger Raptor, especially for what most people
16:02 are going to do with it.
16:03 So it's not quite there in terms of the refinement of the Raptor or the drivability of it, but
16:08 if you need something that is pretty hardcore off-road and has a warranty that backs up
16:13 all the bits that you're adding to it, I reckon this could be a pretty good option.
16:17 Let me know in the comments below, would you get this over a Ranger Raptor?
16:20 Have you bought one?
16:21 How's it all going?
16:22 Are you enjoying it?
16:23 Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
16:24 If you did enjoy this video, make sure you hit like, share it with your mates, hit subscribe,
16:29 and also the bell icon that's going to tell you every single time we publish a new review.
16:32 Until next time, take it easy.