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perksofwifi · 5 years ago

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How Good Is the 2020 Nissan Frontier Pro-4X Off-Road?

Every pickup on the market offers four-wheel drive, or in the case of the Honda Ridgeline and some Chevrolet Silverados, all-wheel drive— learn the difference here. Nearly all of them also offer a specific off-roading package of parts, and a few offer extreme off-road variants. The 2020 Nissan Frontier Pro-4X model leans toward the more capable side of the standard off-road package, so we hit the trail to see if the Pro-4X parts and the new engine and transmission added up to dirt dominance.

Let’s take stock of the equipment we’re working with and why I think it’s a little more substantial than the usual off-road package. The party piece is the manually lockable rear differential, which is frustratingly only functional with the four-wheel drive in Low Range. I get the logic: if you’re in a situation where you need a locker, you probably also need low gears. That’s not always true, and the whole point of having a manual locker is deciding for yourself when to use it. This is likely a case of corporate lawyers trying to keep people from using it in four-wheel drive high or in two-wheel drive, lest we misbehave.

Also included in the Pro-4X package are Bilstein off-road shocks, a beefier Dana rear axle, skid plates under the engine, transfer case, and fuel tank, and Hankook Dynapro AT-M all-terrain tires on 16-inch alloy wheels. The shocks better handle big impacts off-road, while the skid plates protect important mechanical bits from getting bashed open on rocks. Those are both great, but you’re not going to get anywhere off-road where it’ll be a problem without the right tires, and a proper set of all-terrains is just what the weekend warrior ordered.

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Broke home quarantine for a few hours this past weekend to socially isolate out on the Cleghorn Trail in the new 2020 Nissan Frontier. New? Yup. Sure, it still looks at least 5 years old, as one MT photographer told me when he couldn’t find it in a mostly empty parking lot, but it’s got a brand new 3.8L V-6 and 9-speed automatic transmission. Compared to the ancient 4.0 and 5A, it’s got more power and torque and with the 9A I expect it’ll get way better fuel economy when it’s tested. Why the new gear in a very, very old truck? It’s a trial run to work out any bugs before the all-new Frontier finally arrives next year with the same powertrain. Full review, plus an off-road evaluation, coming to MotorTrend.com probably next week. In the meantime, I can tell you if you like the simplicity and low price of the old Frontier and don’t need all the extravagances of a modern pickup, this is the best Frontier to buy since it first went on-sale in 2004. Yes, seriously. #nissanfrontier #frontierpro4x #pro4x #nissan

A post shared by Scott Evans (@dasgimpen) on Apr 7, 2020 at 8:57am PDT

The Frontier’s Hankook all-terrains have beefy tread blocks that dig in off-road and give you the traction you need. On the other hand, they don’t handle as well on-road, but you buy the Pro-4X to get off the pavement. This is why I’d like more control over the rear locker, because the Frontier Pro-4X will go a good way down the trail before you need 4WD thanks to that grip.

To test that, my wife and I headed out to southern California’s Cajon Pass, where the Cleghorn Trail parallels Interstate 15 but takes three hours to get to where the freeway goes in five minutes. Cleghorn is a fantastic trail for testing factory off-roaders because it’s the dirt equivalent of a choose your own adventure book. The main trail can be done by a crossover with decent clearance and a good all-wheel drive system (though not some bad weather-only, front-drive most of the time systems). All along the trail, though, are side trails ranging from 100 yards to a mile long, ranging from moderately difficult to tough enough to challenge a stock Jeep Wrangler Rubicon in places.

It’s not just clearance, though. The Pro-4X’s 8.9 inches under the front differential and 10.1 under the rear are right on par with the competition, but its approach, breakover (or ramp over), and departure angles are again on the more capable side. A 32.6-degree approach angle created by a short front overhang lets you drive up to larger obstacles and get the tire on them without dragging the nose and is almost as good as a Tacoma TRD Pro. Similarly, a 23.3-degree departure angle lets the rear tire come down off an obstacle without bashing the rear bumper on the ground. While the angle itself is as good as a Colorado ZR2 and Tacoma TRD Pro, the plastic mud flaps behind the rear tires on the Pro-4X are apt to catch and drag on obstacles.

Breakover angle is often the most important on a truck, because it determines whether you high-center or not. SUVs have shorter wheelbases and have less to worry about, but trucks will test those skid plates if you’re not careful. The Pro-4X’s is average among direct competitors, while the more expensive trucks with factory lifts do better. A larger diameter tire than the 32-inch Hankook would help, but by the looks of it, you probably can’t get bigger than a 33 on there without running into clearance issues.

Out on the trail, the tires did Journeyman work providing plenty of grip in the sandy soil. For most obstacles the truck’s clearance and angles could handle, four-wheel drive high range was fine. We only used four-low as a means to employ the locking diff, handy when we got the suspension crossed-up with opposite corners touching the ground and in the air. The locker, combined with Nissan’s four-wheel drive-specific stability control system, allowed the truck to crawl over offset moguls by pushing power to all the wheels rather than letting the airborne wheels spin. The amount of wheel articulation was good for a factory off-roader, and we only lifted wheels on the toughest obstacles.

Even with all the right off-road parts, you still need to move the thing. For 2020, the Frontier gets an all-new 3.8-liter V-6 to replace the ancient 4.0-liter, and a nine-speed automatic to replace the equally old five-speed. The new engine makes 49 more horsepower and the exact same torque as the old one, and torque is what you need on the trail. The new transmission has a lot more gears to choose from with a much shorter first gear, plus shorter axle ratios, so you get more torque multiplication in two-high and four-high. This is part of the reason we didn’t need anything more than four-high for most of the trail. A change in the four-low ratio, though, gives you a slightly taller crawl ratio, so a teeny bit less torque is getting to the ground than before in four-low. That’s fine, though, because the Pro-4X has more than enough to pull itself up steep grades and over obstacles.

With good tires, a locker, and more than adequate torque and gearing, the angles are the limiting factor for the Pro-4X, and even they’re pretty decent for a factory job. You can work around them by picking your lines carefully and walking an obstacle before you dive in. Bring a spotter, and the Pro-4X will go places most pickup owners wouldn’t think to take a stock truck. If you’re not going to spend $40-50,000 on a hardcore factory off-roader like the Colorado ZR2 or Jeep Gladiator Rubicon, the Frontier Pro-4X is a better set of parts making for better capability than the typical four-wheel drive mid-size truck off-road package.

The post How Good Is the 2020 Nissan Frontier Pro-4X Off-Road? appeared first on MotorTrend.

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