2021 Nissan Navara Warrior review On-road & off-road detailed test
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00:00G'day, I'm Paul. So everyone's familiar with the Nissan Navara, and Nissan in Australia wanted a big beefy Navara to compete with cars like the
00:07Ford Ranger Raptor and the Toyota Hilux Rugged X, except they didn't want to wait until the next model rolled around.
00:14So they employed an Australian company to come up with something far more hardcore, and they've come up with this.
00:21It's called the Nissan Navara
00:23N-Trek
00:24Warrior. Bit of a cheesy name, but it has a whole bunch of goodies to make off-road driving even better.
00:29It's priced at just under
00:32$66,000 here for the automatic version. Today
00:34we're going to do a detailed review with just a little bit of
00:37off-roading. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, use the time codes up on the screen there, or if
00:42you're on YouTube, scroll down, use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already, hit subscribe and also the bell icon
00:47that'll tell you every single time we test a Warrior.
00:51So what are you getting with your Warrior? You can pick from three different colors, and all but black is an extra
00:56$650. You get this steel bumper at the front. It's body-colored, but there's a problem with it. While it does look cool, a couple of very
01:03minor stone chips will start to develop into rust, so it gives me an idea that perhaps this isn't painted very well,
01:10or doesn't have that
01:11protection under the paint, and that's going to become a problem because stone chips are pretty easy to pick up. You get this LED light
01:17bar at the front, 35 watts. It measures
01:20470 millimeters in width. If we jump down here, you can see some proper
01:25stainless steel protection under the front there. It's three millimeters thick, and that's going to prevent you from hitting
01:31rocks and damaging the engine as you traverse some of that rough terrain. This whole front end really looks quite nice, especially in this color
01:37offset with the black. It just looks nice and tough, and I think they've done a really good job with that.
01:42LED headlights with LED daytime running lights. You get this orange highlight around the fog lights, and if we jump around to the side,
01:49now this is some fairly serious rubber. Up the top here, you have these whopping big wheel arch
01:55protectors. They look like they've literally just been bolted into there. That looks really cool.
01:59These tires are interesting because they are all-terrain tires. They're 32.2 inches. It's a Cooper branded tire,
02:04but they wear this LT designation. That means light truck, so you've got more rubber and steel inside that construction.
02:10It's going to be stronger for off-roading and kind of more adventurous type of driving you'd expect to do with this. 17-inch wheels
02:16that are unique to this car. These allow the wheel track to be 30 millimeters wider,
02:21so this has a wider stance on the road. It also lowers its center of gravity as well,
02:25which means it's going to be better when it comes to off-road driving. Now, let's talk suspension changes.
02:29The Navara obviously comes with a coil sprung rear suspension setup instead of leaf springs, so that stays,
02:35but what they've done up the front here is they've installed softer and taller coiled springs,
02:40so that's going to mean a softer damping to that ride. The shock absorber is a twin tube design,
02:4535 millimeters front and rear, and also the bump stops over here are thicker and softer as well,
02:50so it should mean that that top end of the impact is reduced, and it really just gradually softens out this ride.
02:56In fact, it should drive like the Ranger Raptor,
02:59which is one of the leaders in this segment, because you can literally attack anything in it,
03:03and you barely feel anything inside the cabin, so I'll be keen to see how this all goes with this off-road focus setup.
03:09Okay, let's talk about the rest of the car.
03:10You've got these whopper sidesteps here with more orange highlights, a little bit more orange highlight on the wing mirror with the indicator built-in.
03:18The 360 camera sits there as well, privacy glass, you get these black roof rails, black sports bar,
03:24there's a cool-looking warrior decal here. Come around to the back, have a look at this spoiler thing
03:28they've integrated into the top, so it's flat at the top there, but it kind of curves around.
03:32It looks pretty good, I reckon. Navara down the bottom there,
03:35just in case you forget what you're driving. This retains a three and a half tonne towing capacity,
03:39but a reduced payload, which I'll run you through in a second.
03:43Now, how much space have you got to work with here? Load length comes in at 1503 millimetres,
03:48there's 1560 mil of load width and 1130 mil between the wheel arches, but payload is reduced from
03:55917 kilos to 724, because of all the bits they've added onto it.
04:01But inside the tray here, you get these hooks on the sides, you get this adjustable racking system,
04:07so you can pull that out of the way, set it into the position you want, and this is pretty cool,
04:11you have a 12 volt outlet. It looks waterproof as well.
04:16So, we're inside the Navara, let's kick off with the key. Nissan logo at the top, lock, unlock,
04:20a blank at the bottom, and then nothing on the back. It's a proximity sensing key,
04:24so you just keep that in your pocket, grab the door handle to unlock it,
04:26and then you have the push button start in here.
04:29What about styling? Well, it is a little bit bland.
04:32This car was released back when, I don't know, utes were all about being rugged,
04:35and that's why everything is really quite scratchy and hard around the place.
04:39There is a facelift coming for the Navara, and I think they will address a lot of this,
04:43like they have with other cars in the range.
04:45And in terms of touch points, that's all nice and soft, and so is the door section.
04:50Steering wheel's nicely padded too, so all of the bits you're regularly in contact with
04:54are nice and comfortable.
04:56Now, how hard is all of this stuff around the car and the touch points?
04:59Well, we've got our durometer for that. We've tested all of these surfaces,
05:03and you'll be able to use the link in the description below
05:05to compare the Navara to other cars in this segment.
05:08Finally, build quality. It all actually feels really good.
05:12I have tested a few of these and never really had too many dramas.
05:16OK, moving on to infotainment.
05:18Nissan uses an 8-inch infotainment system that has been updated for the Navara.
05:22If you want a detailed review of this, you can click on the link up here to watch that,
05:26but today I'll take you through a brief overview.
05:28So it's a colour touchscreen, and then on the menu here,
05:31you can flick between the different sections.
05:32You have AM and FM radio. There's no DAB digital there.
05:37And then you have in-built satellite navigation.
05:40You also have smartphone mirroring in the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well.
05:45Let me show you what that looks like.
05:47So you can see full screen integration, nice and quick as well.
05:50And the best bit is that it interacts with voice recognition.
05:53So when you push the button on the steering wheel,
05:55you can use the native voice recognition or just pass it through to the phone,
05:58which will use the cloud to get all of that information.
06:00And I'll show you what Android Auto looks like on the screen.
06:03So again, full screen integration.
06:05We'll go into Maps, have a little look there.
06:07Pretty decent, nice and fast as well.
06:09There's also a six-speaker sound system.
06:11And in terms of connectivity, you've got your Bluetooth here, no CD player,
06:15USB connectivity down the bottom.
06:16But remember, that is for the smartphone mirroring, which is driven by a cable auxiliary.
06:21Then you have a 12-volt up the top, a 12-volt here,
06:24and then another 12-volt in the centre console.
06:26Let's talk safety.
06:27So the Navara is pretty behind a lot of its competitors now.
06:30There's no autonomous emergency braking, no blind spot monitoring here,
06:34no lane keeping assistant.
06:36There really isn't a great deal going on, which is a bit disappointing.
06:39But there is an update coming to Navara, which is likely to bring those things.
06:42But you do get an auto-dimming rear vision mirror with compass and a 360-degree camera.
06:48Let's look at what that looks like.
06:50So here it is here.
06:51Look, it looks okay, but it's so poxy in terms of the resolution.
06:55It's just not very sharp.
06:57And at night time, it's a little hard to see.
06:58But you do get full coverage around the car with rear parking sensors,
07:01no front parking sensors, but you have a camera that looks at all of those sides as well.
07:05Okay, what about practicality?
07:07We'll start with storage.
07:08Where are you going to put your phone?
07:10So it fits sort of up the front here a little bit.
07:13It is grippy, so it's not going to slide away too much, but no wireless phone charging.
07:18It does fit into the drink holder slot as well nicely.
07:21Now, what about our bottle?
07:22Let's have a look at that.
07:24Easily fits into there.
07:25And then inside the door, you've got bottle storage plus room for odds and ends.
07:29Center console, it's a weird shape.
07:31It's quite deep, but sort of not very wide.
07:34Gives you an idea of how deep it is.
07:36Glove box.
07:38Yeah, it sort of doesn't really work when you've got the manual in there.
07:41But you do have these things for storing your bottle in front of the heater,
07:45if it's a hot drink or a cold drink.
07:48And then sunglasses storage up the top.
07:50And that nook up the front for papers and bits and pieces.
07:53Also adjacent to your knee and also the passenger side, you have this little storage nook.
07:58Let me see if that fits a phone.
08:00There you go.
08:00Phone storage.
08:01In terms of comfort, you have dual zone automatic climate control.
08:04Heated seats with two settings.
08:07The seats are interesting.
08:08They've got like leather and then this cloth material.
08:10They look pretty cool with that orange stitching.
08:13You do get highlights in here like Ntrek Warrior.
08:15There's also electric seat adjustment for the driver's seat.
08:18The passenger seat is manually adjusted and they're fairly comfortable as well.
08:22The only thing I don't like here, the steering wheel, yes, it sits nicely in the hand,
08:25but you only have tilt adjustment.
08:28There's no reach.
08:29It won't go in or out.
08:30So you're kind of locked into that position, unfortunately.
08:33But outside of that, all of your controls are easy to reach and you don't really need
08:36to take your eyes too far off the road to do basic functions.
08:40Righto, back seat.
08:41Before I hop in and show you how much room there is, let's have a look at storage.
08:45So this pops up.
08:46That'll attach to the top tether as well if you do want a flat floor.
08:49And you have a little bit of storage under here, the jack taking up all of that space
08:53and a couple of other bits and pieces in there.
08:55So not a great deal of storage.
08:56Now, this doesn't fold down like in a lot of Utes, but you do have top tether points
09:01just here, three of them, and then ISOFIX points on the outboard seats.
09:07Let me hop in.
09:08Oh, by the way, I love this little window.
09:09It slides open and it's controlled from the front.
09:12Setting position's interesting.
09:13I've got knee room, but I feel like my legs are like up near my chin.
09:17It's weird.
09:18Barely any toe room either.
09:19So the room here isn't fantastic, but, you know, you'll get comfortable somehow.
09:24Headroom, pretty reasonable.
09:26You've got air vents there as well.
09:27No 12-volt outlet back here.
09:29Map pockets.
09:30Where are you going to put your bottle?
09:32Well, there's nothing there.
09:34Nothing there either.
09:35So you've only got the option of sticking your bottle inside the door, which is okay.
09:40Not amazing back here.
09:43So we've hit the road in the Warrior and powering this thing is a 2.3-litre,
09:48four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine.
09:51Makes 140 kilowatts of power and 450 newton metres of torque.
09:56Looks like a groundbreaking amount, and it's now behind the main pack,
10:00which is sitting at that 500 newton metre mark.
10:03And you kind of feel it behind the wheel because of the extra weight
10:06this is carrying in comparison to a regular Navara.
10:09It's about 200 kilos extra.
10:11So let's give it a little punch here and see what it feels like.
10:16Yeah, it feels pretty lazy.
10:18I've got my foot buried in that, and it's just sort of not really doing a great deal.
10:23In terms of zero to 100, there isn't an official quoted figure, but let's see how it goes.
10:43In terms of transmission, it uses a seven-speed automatic.
10:46Generally does a pretty good job,
10:48and you can override the gears manually using the gear selector here.
10:51There's no paddle shifters or anything like that,
10:53but for the most part, I don't think you really need it in a ute like this.
10:57Ahead of the driver is a small LCD display.
11:01This displays a digital speedo, which is a good feature to have in some parts of Australia.
11:05A little littered with speed cameras.
11:07You've got a trip computer in there, and then also the fuel economy,
11:10which is officially seven litres per 100km, but we're seeing 10.8.
11:14So it's a big step up from the advertised figure.
11:17Also in there, you've got a compass and a couple of other bits and pieces like audio and settings.
11:22This is also now one of the few utes in the segment that still uses a hydraulic steering rack.
11:27A lot of them have moved to EPAS, which is an electrically assisted steering rack,
11:31and that means they can put features like lane keeping assistance,
11:34semi-automatic parking, and that kind of thing.
11:36For the most part, it's okay.
11:38It doesn't have a great deal of feel, and it can be quite heavy
11:41when you're trying to park and do other low-speed things,
11:43but I think that's to be expected with a ute.
11:47Now in terms of ride quality, obviously the big changes here to the suspension
11:51have made a big difference off-road.
11:52Well, I hope they have, but they've also improved the ride experience on regular roads,
11:58and also choppy roads like this one.
11:59It's really smoothed it out nicely.
12:01It's not quite as soft as something like a Ford Ranger Raptor,
12:04but for the most part, it's really settled it.
12:06What you used to find with the Navara, a lot of the times the front felt disconnected from the rear,
12:11and that's because of that coil spring setup,
12:12where it all feels a little more cohesive at the moment.
12:15Now what about the noise?
12:16This engine is a tiny bit noisy.
12:18It's not the worst in the segment, but it's definitely not the quietest,
12:21especially if you get stuck into it.
12:23You can really hear that noise coming in through the cabin,
12:26but in terms of visibility, at the front, it's excellent.
12:28You sit really high up, so you've got this commanding view over the road.
12:32At the back, it's pretty good as well, and big wing mirrors as well,
12:35so you can see clearly down the side.
12:36Righto, let's talk four-wheel drive specifications.
12:40So, 35-degree approach angle, which is the angle of the face you can approach
12:44before hitting the front of the car,
12:46and a 19-degree departure angle, which is the same, but at the rear.
12:49Ground clearance, 268 millimetres, so that is 40 millimetres higher than the standard car,
12:54so you're getting that extra bit of room before you hit things underneath the car,
12:58and a wading depth of around 500 millimetres.
13:01There is also a rear differential lock as well.
13:04So, we're going to test out all of these features, and we've come to Log Mountain here.
13:09So, I'm going to go from 2 high into 4 low, which is just activated by turning this switch.
13:14It's regularly just a two-wheel drive car, rear-wheel drive,
13:17if you haven't got any of this engaged.
13:19So, you put it into neutral, 4 low comes up on the display there.
13:23Look, we probably don't need 4 low for this,
13:26but I've popped it in there anyway just so we can test it out.
13:28So, let's give this a shot.
13:31All right, it doesn't feel too rough in here, which is nice.
13:34It's not lurching too much as we try and climb this.
13:37I can hear one of those wheels slipping a little bit there.
13:43Oh, it's interesting.
13:47I'm actually able to get up here.
13:48It is a tiny bit damp, but I am surprised that with these tyres,
13:54we're not actually able to climb this.
13:56I'll give this one more shot, maybe with a little bit more pace this time.
14:02All right, let's give this a crack.
14:06All right, here we go.
14:08All right, that's better.
14:12It's a little rougher this time,
14:14and we've just passed the spot where we had trouble last time.
14:17Okay, so we're at the top now.
14:19I'm going to go from 4 low to 4 high as we go over our rocks here.
14:24This is going to give us a good idea of the amount of space we have underneath the car
14:28and whether that 268 millimetres is enough.
14:31There is a hill descent control as well,
14:33so I will activate that for when we get closer to the bottom.
14:37All right, pick my path here.
14:38Let's see how we go.
14:40Okay, this feels really good.
14:41The brake pedal isn't overly sensitive, which is great.
14:45It means it's not sort of lurching every single time you move
14:47and your body weight gets transferred onto the actual pedal itself.
14:51I'm going to drop into a rut here.
14:53That wheel's off the ground, the back one.
14:55This is not even touching anything underneath.
14:57We did the D-Max here the other day,
14:59and it was collecting a fair bit as we came over these rocks,
15:02but this extra ground clearance is just making this walk over it.
15:07There's the hill descent control working as well.
15:08All pretty straightforward.
15:09Okay, so we'll head over to our river crossing.
15:11It is worth pointing out that it is wetter here today,
15:14which is what I suspect has caused us to have traction issues on the logs.
15:17They are seriously slippery when they get just a little bit of moisture on them.
15:20Okay, so 500 mil or thereabouts of wading depth.
15:23This is embarrassingly shallow over here at the moment,
15:27so it's not going to look all that impressive,
15:29but I thought we'd get a shot of it anyway.
15:32Yeah, look, I mean this is all pretty straightforward through here.
15:34There's no magic to it.
15:36And with so much clearance underneath this,
15:39if you do want to get any more serious about driving through rivers
15:42and that kind of thing, you're going to need a snorkel,
15:44but this literally just walks through it.
15:47So Nissan Navara N-Trek Warrior.
15:50Look, it's impressive because this isn't a factory job.
15:53This is something that an Australian engineering firm has thrown together,
15:56and I reckon it's most of the way there to being like a Ford Ranger Raptor,
16:00especially for what most people are going to do with it.
16:03So it's not quite there in terms of the refinement of the Raptor
16:06or the drivability of it,
16:08but, you know, if you need something that is pretty hardcore off-road
16:11and has a warranty that backs up all the bits that you're adding to it,
16:14I reckon this could be a pretty good option.
16:17Let me know in the comments below,
16:18would you get this over a Ranger Raptor?
16:20Have you bought one?
16:21How's it all going?
16:22Are you enjoying it?
16:23Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
16:25If you did enjoy this video, make sure you hit like,
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16:31we publish a new review.
16:32But until next time, take it easy.