Xterra stands for Xtra

I'm not much SUV person, but the Xterra I bought, is the exception. Previously, I have owned a 2001 Ford Expedition which I didn't like and a 1995 Toyota 4Runner, a good dependable vehicle, with drawbacks.

Some background: My seventeen year old daughter who, between activities - she’s a gymnast - and school was driving around five hundred miles a week. We decided for safety and dependability reasons to let her drive our 4Runner. Last year she was involved in an accident (other driver cited). About three months after getting it back, it was totaled, and my daughter was taken to a hospital, after being rear ended on a freeway. Fortunately her injuries weren’t serious but now we can add physical therapy to her activities and add another hundred miles a week.

Without her own vehicle, it was falling on my wife or myself to chauffeur her to school etc. We needed to get her another vehicle quickly. We had driven a rental Jeep Liberty for about two weeks after the second accident and liked it, so we leaned that way. But my daughter had her own input. She brought me a picture of a yellow Nissan Xterra that she had printed off the internet. I have had Nissans (actually two were Datsuns) before and always thought they were well made cars, so I bought a yellow 2001 4X2 Nissan Xterra XE.

Performance: The 4Runner I had before, was a good dependable car but, despite being a V6, it was gutless. My Xterra is also a V6, a peppy, 170 HP, 3.3 liter engine, that seems to have so much more go, that my daughter even remarked about it. Since most of our driving is open road or relatively traffic free freeway, the gas mileage has been fairly good at about eighteen miles per gallon

Handling: Handling was the main things that turned me off on the Expedition. It was too touchy, like one careless move, would roll you over. The Xterra is another matter entirely. It handles like a dream. In some ways it’s comparable to my sports cars. It’s a little smaller and it handles and accelerates well. The steering is very good as is the braking. Even though it’s an SUV, it still corners well. The suspension also seems to be good, since I’m able to breeze over the washboard road I live on. Of course I would prefer to drive my sports cars, but when I need to be practical, which is most of the time, this is a great substitute.

Interior: The Xterra would be considered small SUV, in a category along with the Liberty, CR-V and Escape but is larger than the others and therefore it has more room. One problem would be hidden storage. The 4Runner had storage areas on each side of the rear cargo area, which the Xterra doesn‘t. The only hidden storage, is the glove compartment and a shallow and deep compartments in the console.

As far as I know all Xterras have grey cloth seats. The dashboard is attractive and functional. Everything is easy to reach and or is clearly visable. In the following years they changed the dashboard configuration which makes the instrument panel much harder to read.

Another feature I like are the back seats. They sit about four inches higher than the front seats, allowing passengers greater visibility.

Appearance:

Of all the SUVs around I like the looks of the Xterra best. With it’s standard tubular luggage rack and step rail, it looks loaded for business. This Xterra also came with a brush guard which nicely augments the off road appearance.

Conclusion

I couldn’t be more pleased. The things that I didn’t like about my other SUVs were not an issue. What’s more, I. a long time sports car enthusiast, enjoy driving this little gem, so much so that when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to drive it as much as I wanted, I bought my own blue 2003 Xterra SE.

Author’s Note: This automobile review is another entry in Sleeper54's famous Lean-n-mean IV write off, the purpose of which is to encourage, shorter, well written, informative reviews in 666 words or less. Check Tom's link for details: http://www.epinions.com/content_4557283460