The beauty of Nissan Armada is value Under the hood: Keeping the blind zone system working
Big has never been so bountiful. That’s a challenge for the 2018 Nissan Armada full-size SUV.
The flagship of Nissan’s flotilla of crossovers contends in a crowded class of redesigned family leviathans spanning from GM’s 2015 family of full-sizers to the upstream 2018 Lincoln Navigator to the forthcoming Mercedes GLS. The only stale one on the market is the Toyota Sequoia, which is appreciated for its rugged old-school truckness.
The redesigned Armada offers value with refinement and capability. It’s not as flashy or expensive as the competition, and the in-car technology carries far too many buttons to be intuitive, but it checks all the important boxes for an eight-seat truckbased family hauler.
Moving away from the Titan pickup truck platform it shared since its inception in 2004, Armada now uses a more refined platform shared with the Patrol SUV sold elsewhere in the world and the upmarket Infiniti QX80.
Visually it looks similar to the QX80 but starts at $20,000 less. It’s over an inch longer, presumably due to the rear bumper, though the wheelbase and height have shrunk by more than 2 inches, making it look more proportionate than the bulky outgoing model. Add the dark chrome accents of the tester for $3,000, including 20inch dark chrome wheels, and the similarities to its platformmate are even more striking.
The similarities end on the inside, though the Armada is still very nicely equipped in the top-of-the-line Platinum Reserve trim level. Because it rides high even in the lowest seating position, and because the rear headrests can limit rear visibility, Nissan uses an “intelligent rearview mirror” which has a camera view from the top of the rear liftgate projected onto the actual mirror, in addition to the standard backup camera in the 8-inch touch screen. Instead of glancing in the mirror and seeing a gaggle of cackling tweens, for instance, you’ll see what traffic is behind you and in the blind spot before changing lanes.
Power liftgate comes with the Platinum, so closing it from the driver’s seat when the kids forget is simple. Thirdrow 60/40 split seats also get the power treatment for easy flat-floor storage, and the handle on the side of the second row 60/40 split seats is durable yet easy enough to be operated by grade schoolers getting in the third row.
Those same grade schoolers might have too much fun playing with the reclining thirdrow seats, until they are lulled to sleep on the holiday road. Headroom and legroom is ample back there for under 6-footers, while the second row is one of the most spacious in the full-size class. It is a split bench seat that doesn’t slide up or back, however, and getting out from the third row with the seat-top latch requires a bit more muscular hand dexterity. Second row slides forward for easy thirdrow ingress, and lays flat for a full flat floor for transporting folding tables and chairs, and a pinata or two.
Despite being powered by a Titanesque 390-horsepower 5.6-liter V-8 engine that Nissan calls best in class, the ride is surprisingly refined and quiet. Acceleration is lovely for such a behemoth, but it steers and handles exactly like what it is. The seven-speed transmission replacing the outgoing fivespeed is smooth and predictable, and the four-wheeldrive powertrain as a whole churns out 394 pound-feet of torque, good enough to tow 8,500 pounds. Direct injection and variable valve timing combine with the additional gears to improve fuel economy by 1 mpg to 15 mpg combined, though we averaged 17 mpg at 34 mph. GM and Ford’s fullsize products do it better at 18 mpg combined, which makes fuel economy the biggest deficit of the Armada.
The center stack controls aren’t far behind. After a week with the Armada, there was no greater understanding of the layout logic, which includes trip odometer and vehicle info display buttons mounted high up on either side of the gauge cluster. The narrow touch screen is too far removed to want to touch, and a button for every function leads to a lot of unsafe time looking down to figure out which does what.
That’s too bad, because the overall feel of the Armada is refined value, even if it doesn’t feel as fresh as the competition.
Your blind zone warning system consists of left and right objects sensors, each concealed behind the rear bumper fascia (painted plastic trim at the bumper corners), driver and passenger door modules, and driver and passenger (outside) mirrors, which display the alert indicator.
Your sensors use radar (electromagnetic waves that bounce off solid objects and return an echo indicating there’s something there) to detect a vehicle or object approximately in the vehicle’s 3 to 5:30 and 6:30 to 9 o’clock positions out to about 11 feet, and post a serial data message that is received by the door module on that side. The outside mirror indicator is then requested by the door module. If the turn signal for that side is on, a more urgent flashing message is displayed. Other carmakers may use cameras in the mirrors to detect and classify objects or a combination of several methods to get this done.
Reliable sensor operation requires reasonably clear weather, a clean sensor surface, and an occasional object occurring to prove-out
BRAD BERGHOLDT
radar function. Heavy rain, dirty sensors, snow build-up or perhaps towing a trailer or attaching a bike rack may cause missing alerts or suspended operation. Also, if you are driving in areas without roadside features, perhaps the desert, and no vehicles approach for a period of about 15 to 25 minutes, the system may indicate a disabled or unavailable message as it is uncertain of radar functionality. In this case the system will reinitialize at the next key cycle.
If your warning message incidents match one of the scenarios mentioned above, there may be nothing to fix, other than keeping sensor surfaces (and/or cameras, on other vehicles) clean. If not, a professional-grade scan tool can be employed to communicate independently with each sensor to proveout consistent functionality.
For those of us driving vehicles without this feature, try adjusting the side mirrors like this: Driver’s side: Lean left with your head almost touching the door glass, adjust the left mirror so the side of the car is barely visible at the right side of the mirror, or perhaps up to
of the total mirror image. Right side: Lean right, head near the centerline of the vehicle, adjust right mirror so the side of the vehicle is barely visible at the left edge of the mirror — or up to view.
Adding a small convex stick-on mirror in the lower inside corner of each mirror can also help mixing it up with a vehicle, object or pedestrian in our intended path.