Good Old truck

Having never owned a pickup before, I was somewhat confused what direction to go. Having just moved into a new home with no landscaping, a pickup truck was pretty much a necessity. I considered buying a full size truck, but talked myself out of it due to the rising gas prices. Now as far as manufacturers go, I had pretty much narrowed it down to one brand, NISSAN. No other auto maker was really in the running here. Nissan vehicles have been in our family for almost 15 years, and there has never been one major problem to date. To name a few of the models in our family line up, Altima, Maxima, NX, and last but not least Frontier. And the amazing part of all, they are all still on the road. Even going back to a 1990 Nissan NX!

I had pretty much made up my mind to try and stay under the 20 thousand mark. I was leaning towards buying an end of year clearance model. I knew I definitely wanted a 6 cylinder engine. I personally have no use for 4 cylinder engines. They are sadly lacking in power and are far too noisy, and truthfully don't have much better gas mileage than there bigger counterparts. The Frontier King Cab we purchased, did have plenty of power. 261 HP to be exact. You definitely know you have some grit under that gas pedal! The engine displacement of the V6 is 4.0 liters.

The whole buying process was painless, except for the laying out of the money. Well let me backtrack a bit, not completely painless. The first salesman I dealt with was a jerk, so full of himself it wasn't funny. He had left such a bad taste in our mouths, we had pretty much given up dealing with this particular dealership. That was when we stumbled across a truly great salesman, an online sales rep to be exact.

Living in Southeast Texas, our local dealership is Mike Smith Auto Plaza. This place carries just about every brand you can think of. When we finally sat down with our new found salesman, we were impressed. He was very professional and concise with his answers to our questions. He located the particular model we were looking for, in our case it was the Frontier King cab. Unfortunately it was not at this particular dealership, they had to do a dealer trade. We had to get it sent in from Houston TX. We gave our friendly salesman the green light to order it. Before it was sent, the salesman called to inform us this model had a Tonneau cover. He assured us it would only increase the price by $400.00. To me that was OK, because I was looking at adding on this feature at a later date. The Tonneau cover is actually composed of two halves, both of which are lockable. The opening of these covers is assisted by gas struts. If you plan on doing a lot of travel or want to secure your cargo, or are just planning on doing occasional hauling, I highly recommend this option. It also makes the truck look better. If you want this cover, I believe it comes as part of a performance package. With this package you also get bigger tires, as well as Alloy wheels. Well worth it in my opinion. This package adds a lot of class to exterior appearance of the truck.

An important note on the Tonneau cover, it is not waterproof. It is weather resistant, but not totally weatherproof. It rained a few times on my return from Canada, and some of the stuff did get wet. But the cargo was not drenched, just slightly wet in select locations. I'd say it kept things 99 percent dry. All and all, it does a pretty good job of keeping water out.

The model we went with, was the King Cab SE. This version does not have full seats in the back, just mini seats. I personally don't know why they even bother to put seating in the back, there is so little room, I doubt even a child could be comfortable. Behind the back seat is a storage area for the jack, and a small storage compartment. The front seats are quite comfortable, which I can attest to after driving the vehicle on a 3500 mile trip. My back stood the test, just my butt got a bit sore. The CD player/radio is standard. The AC has manual controls, as opposed to Automatic climate control. Power windows are part of a power package. Overall the truck comes very well equipped.

It's funny, when I am sitting in this truck, I think I am in the meanest truck there is, that is until I park beside a full sizer! To appease myself and defend why I decided to buy a smaller size pickup, I have a saying that goes like this, 'with all that girth and height comes a mighty appetite!' Enough said.

Don't let the Frontiers size fool you, it's a pretty tough truck. I sure had it loaded down coming back from my native Canada. Full with an air compressor, tool box, extension cords, air tools. Don't know what the total weight was, but I figured somewhere in the 1000 pound area. Funny thing is, the truck seemed to travel better with the additional weight on board!

How good was my gas mileage on my trip? The best I had got, was about 28mpg highway, and 18mpg city. Now that number could vary according to the weather and road conditions. I am overall quite pleased with the Frontiers gas mileage.

In my final summation of this truck, I would say it has been a joy to own and drive. I would highly recommend it.

P.S. Took the old girl on another trip to Canada, the Frontier performed great! Put on about 3,500 miles! This is a truly excellent truck! I averaged about 30 MPG on the highway, which for the most part was the majority of driving I did. This is comparable to what I get in my 2002 GXE Maxima! Not bad.
Since I've been back, I've noticed more and more Frontiers on the road. Maybe it's the rising gas prices? You really cant beat it for a small truck, the Toyota Tacoma just cant compare.