The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Big, burly Nissan 2017 Titan HD can be a gas
Spending a week driving a large pickup truck around suburbia, as well as a couple of hundred miles down the interstate and back, will give you plenty of insight into living with this sized vehicle.
Driving the gasolinepowered Nissan Titan HD is a pure truck experience.
Granted I am not by nature a truck person, but that week of driving got me plenty comfortable with where the corners were, and just how small a parking spot I could get it into. Basically, if I could get a car into it, I was pretty certain I could get the Titan in it as well.
Having said that, this Titan XD is a pretty large vehicle. The wheelbase, at 151.6 inches, is about 11.8 inches longer than standard Titan. Overall length for the Titan XD is 242.7 inches while Titan measures 228.1 inches. Titan XD’s height is 78.8 inches while Titan measures 76 inches. So, this isn’t merely another 1500-class light pickup truck. But it isn’t officially a heavy-duty truck either.
It sort of fits in between them, which Nissan feels will attract those who need just a bit more capability but would rather not pay the serious premium to move up the 2500-class vehicles. When this justabout-heavy-duty sized pickup truck was introduced as a 2016 model, it was only powered by a diesel engine. Now, for the 2017 model year, Nissan has added a gasoline engine to the lineup.
Nissan says this is a new engine, although it shares the displacement of the previous truck V8 throughout their fleet. But this engine produces 390 hp. and 402 lb.-ft. of peak torque compared to the previous model’s 317 hp. and 385 lb.-ft. of peak torque. This power goes through a seven-speed transmission to either the rear or all four wheel.
It does this by using four variable valves per cylinder as well and direct gasoline injection for more efficient power control. On the highway, I got almost 16 mpg for a 200-or-so mile drive. Official EPA numbers are 15 mpg city and 21 mpg highway. In general driving, including a fair bit of highway, that average dropped to 13.9 mpg.
While that might sound horrible, it’s not something of great concern for people who would be shopping a big truck. This engine also gives the gas-powered Titan a maximum payload of 2594 lb. and a tow rating of 11,270-lb. You can also attach a snow plow to the front of this pickup, something that’s popular in certain parts of the country despite global warming.
So this Titan will do pretty much anything that a non-professional owner would want. That means the fairer fuel-economy comparison would be against true heavy-duty classed vehicles, because that’s what Nissan hopes that’s what they are going to be shopped against.
The engine provided plenty of power to accomplish tasks for a pickup of this size. Having said that, if I was going to be buying this to tow something requiring this much capability, I’d probably opt for the diesel version. But then again, I like diesel engines for a number of reasons.
The interior is that of a truck: nice, but fairly analog. The shifter is on the column, which is a good place for it when you have a transmission that you rarely must shift. Why take up space on the center console? Most pickup truck drivers have plenty of stuff to store there, so it seems to make sense.
The map screen could have been bigger, and it was a long reach to use the touchscreen aspect of it. Perhaps I’m spoiled, because the trend in cars to for larger and larger screens. Would be worth considering when it comes time in a couple of model years to refresh the Titan.
Seats are quite comfortable, and on a several-hour trip it was plenty supportive. The cabin is huge, with plenty of room for the rear riders.
The truck comes with a bed liner and Nissan’s adjustable rail system for tie downs and other accoutrements. I particularly like the rear corner steps, which move in and out with an easy pull on the side of it.
Although this is a large vehicle, it was easy to drive in traffic. Granted, you had to pay attention because there were many times when you might have just a couple of inches of play. But there’s never been anything wrong with a vehicle requiring that its driver pay attention.
The double side mirrors are great, giving you two valuable views along both sides and rearward. For pickup drivers, this is a quite helpful feature, because of the previous para- graph’s point — you must pay attention to what’s near your vehicle, all the way around.
There’s plenty of power in this large truck. But in driving on the highway it was quiet and trying to be efficient by keeping the revs low. Need the power and it’s there for passing. I would have liked to do a little less correcting with the steering wheel on what appeared and felt like pretty smooth roadways, but that isn’t an unusual situation with pickups as compared to cars.
Pricing starts with a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price* (MSRP) of $34,780 for the Titan Crew Cab S 4x2 up to the starting price for the top-ofthe-line TITAN XD Platinum Reserve Crew Cab 4x4 $56,910