Pathfinder conquers snowy hill
Now in week two of long-term test, SUV is still impressive
As soon as the Pathfinder descended the hill to the lake, I knew I was in trouble. I could feel the SUV sinking into the deep snow, which was roughly 30 centimetres deep. I was looking to take some scenic photos, and my neighbour’s boat launch at the cottage, surrounded by white pines, seemed the ideal spot.
But heading down the hill, a steep drop to the lake on one side and a rock face on the other, I knew getting out would be tough. Oh, what the heck: this was why I borrowed a 2013 Pathfinder SL from Nissan Canada for eight weeks — to see if the all-new Pathfinder still had the “right stuff.”
After taking pictures, I aimed the $41,000 Pathfinder toward the hill, roughly 300 metres long, angled with a grade of about 30 degrees. Just then a local teen squirmed his way down the hill on his Yamaha ATV.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” said the earnest young man named Taylor, “but my first thought when I saw the tire tracks was, ‘Who’s the idiot who went down there?’ ” With the genuine earnestness of people who live in the country, he kindly said he’d stick around in case I couldn’t get out. Now I was faced with two tasks: getting the Pathfinder up the hill and trying to avoid the embarrassment of a city slicker needing a tow.
The Pathfinder’s locking 4x4 system is a valuable feature in these kinds of situations. Many limited slip AWD drive systems would not have gotten down this hill, let alone back up. So I locked the system, shut off the traction control, put the CVT transmission in low and stepped on the gas. I made it halfway up before the wheels began to spin wildly with- out moving the Pathfinder ahead. I tried again and again, each time gaining only a precious few metres. On the sixth try, I was ready to concede defeat and accept Taylor’s help.
On the seventh push, the Pathfinder — throwing snow into the air like confetti — moved further ahead than before. Suddenly, I had crested the steepest part and was now ambling slowly forward. Seconds later, I was free of the hill and safely on my plowed laneway. “That’s amazing,” Taylor said. “My 4x4 would not have done that.”
To be honest, I was surprised the Pathfinder did that, too. Its 6.5 inches of ground clearance is not what it used to be — it’s no longer a truckbased SUV like a Toyota 4Runner or Jeep, the kind of SUV that would easily knock off this challenge. But the Pathfinder did it anyway, proving it’s not just a mall crawler after all.
Now in week two of this longterm test, the Pathfinder continues to impress me. Unlike other longterm tests, I have yet to find anything that annoys me about this truck. No, not true: the Bluetooth phone system will not display my entire phone book so I can scroll through the listings looking for the right person. While it does have a voice command that might be the first I’ve ever used to accurately select the right function most of the time, I also prefer a more robust manual system.
Other than that, I’m hard-pressed so far to find genuine fault. The heated leather seats are comfortable, the heated leather steering wheel an absolute delight. The instrumentation and controls are easy, navigable and clear. Rear seat room is ample, the build quality seems very good, the ride comfortable without being too soft. The 260 horsepower V6 feels strong enough. Even the CVT transmission — something I thought I would hate — is eminently easy to live with, shifting not with the slow, elastic, highpitched drone we’ve come to expect of continuously variable transmissions, but almost like a regular automatic. My wife couldn’t detect the difference.
Fuel consumption so far has ranged from an average combined city and highway high of 15.3 L/100 km, to a low of 12.2, with the best highway rating so far at 10.2, though the weather has been extremely cold and I’m guilty of too much idling. The official rating is 10.8 L/100 km city and 7.9 highway.