ROGUE WARRIOR NISSAN IS EASY ON THE BUDGET
The 2019 Rogue, Nissan’s best-selling model for the past two years, is a good fit for the safety-conscious, budget-minded driver.
The SL-AWD is loaded with all the bells and whistles of a luxury SUV, minus the sticker-shocking price. With a base price about $30,000, adding in extras like 19-inch aluminum-alloy wheels, power tailgate, Bose Audio and LED headlights will bump it to about $36,000.
As a taller guy, I was impressed with how much headroom there was. With the power panoramic sunroof, the sky was the limit, leaving the interior feeling airy and bright. The twotone, quilted leather seats were both attractive and comfortable, and the vehicle would easily and comfortably seat five with plenty of room for cargo.
In 2019, Nissan offers Safe- ty Shield and the Rogue is the first model to be equipped with it standard. Safety Shield offers a suite of protective features, which include lane-departure warning, intelligent lane intervention, automatic
emergency braking with pedestrian detection, radarbased blind-spot warning, rear cross-traffic alert, and rear automatic braking. Rogue has earned good safety scores from the IIHS and NHTSA, including a superior score for front crash prevention from the IIHS.
The compact SUV is powered by a 2.5-liter inline 4 cylinder, producing 170 hp and 175 lb.-ft. of torque. Paired with an Xtronic CVT transmission, I thought it gave a rubber-band sensation and caused the engine to whine too much with lethargic acceleration. The tradeoff to that, however, is decent fuel economy. The EPA rates the Rogue at about 28 mpg combined.
Comparing it with the hotselling Honda CR-V is unfair. The Rogue can’t keep up to the CR-V’s powerful, turbocharged engine, which leaves the Rogue in the dust. The Rogue does offer more standard features throughout, which keeps it mentionable with the CR-V.
The dictionary definition of rogue is dishonest or worthless. As it’s becoming more and more common to see the 2019 Nissan Rogue out and about, on the highway or around town, this Rogue is neither.