Category: Large 4x4s 
Price Range: No data available
Great looks, loads of kit, seven-seat practicality, feels tough enough for anything.
Suspension struggles to iron out poor road surfaces, engine sounds cruder than it is.
A go-anywhere, do-anything tough nut along the lines of the Mitsubishi Shogun and Toyota Land Cruiser. Just don't go expecting a Land Rover Discovery.
The Pathfinder doesn't feel too big for punting around town, unlike the Land Cruiser and Mitsubishi Shogun. The large expanses of glass give great outward visibility and there's even a colour rear-view display screen on the top-spec Aventura model to help out when parking; that's an option on the Sport version as part of the Tech Pack.
Body roll when cornering is extremely well controlled for a vehicle of its size, because Nissan engineers have kept the centre of gravity low. The Pathfinder grips well, with good feedback through the steering wheel giving confidence on challenging roads. On smooth continental autoroutes the Pathfinder has good damping and rides very well, but its composure is rattled by B-road bumps, which make the body shake in a way that would unsettle a driver who's used to more car-like SUVs.
The Pathfinder is a proper off-roader. It comes with Nissan's All Mode drive system, which automatically changes the drive from rear-only into four-wheel drive. In normal driving conditions all power is sent to the rear wheels, but if conditions become slippery power is also channelled to the front wheels. The system can be locked into rear-wheel drive, four-wheel drive or four-wheel drive low-ratio, too. Off-road performance is impressive for a vehicle of its size, helped by the good ground clearance and the modestly sized overhangs, making sure it's those 17" wheels that tackle the obstacles, not the underside of the body.
The Pathfinder's 2.5-litre turbodiesel engine is based on the 2.2-litre common-rail unit found in the X-Trail. For 2007 the power output is down slightly, from 171bhp to 169bhp at 4000rpm, but it keeps the same 297lb-ft of torque, available from just 2000rpm.
The reduction in power is the result of fitting the engine with a heftier exhaust system that gets the engine through the crucial Euro 4 emissions barrier. Its carbon dioxide output is 264g/km for the manual, 283 for the automatic; its combined fuel consumption figure is 28.8mpg for the manual, 283 for the auto.
Even though it has a kerb weight of around 2.2 tonnes, the Pathfinder will reach 62mph from standstill in 11.9 seconds (11.8 auto), with a top speed of 108mph. These figures are bang on the money for the class, and the Pathfinder never feels slow. On the downside, your ears will never let you forget that there's a diesel engine in front of you. It's on the clattery side around town, and tends to drone on the motorway.
