Nissan Terrano II. Buy or not?
Remember the movie “Guest from the Future”? There, a bad space pirate suggested to our pioneer to give the magic device melafon, promising to donate Zhiguli for it: “Imagine you are so small, and already“ Zhiguli … ”. A similar phrase met me one of my friends when I drove up to him on the Nissan Terrano II.
Only this phrase sounded a little different – “so funny, but already an SUV”. Indeed, outwardly, the Nissan Terrano II with its round eyes looks somewhat frivolous.
We have adopted that the SUV exuded confidence and some brute force (of course, if it is not female “SUV”). This is exactly the Mercedes G-class or Toyota Land Cruiser 100. But the Nissan Terrano II seems to be somehow not at all a terrible conqueror of off-road. This is especially true of the car, produced in the period from 1996 to 1999 – it was then that the headlights were made round rather than rectangular.
Who is Mr. Terrano?
You need to immediately deal with the fact that such a Nissan Terrano II. The fact is that the market can meet several different cars called Terrano. For the first time a car with this name appeared in 1986. And under this name it was sold only in Japan, but in the US it was called the Pathfinder. This car was produced in the main factories of Nissan until 1996. After that, the production of a new generation of Terrano / Pathfinder began. The assembly of the first Terrano was transferred to the southeastern branches of Nissan.
But for the European market in 1993, was released a new model – Nissan Terrano II. This SUV was the fruit of the activities of two auto giants, because Nissan and Ford experts took part in its creation. So there is nothing surprising that the first generation Ford Maverick is an almost exact copy of the Nissan Terrano II.
First went
The first Nissan Terrano / Pathfinder does not differ in modern forms, but it is still being bought not only because of its relatively low price, but also because of its reliability. Due to its age and the spread of this car, you can easily find spare parts, which are also inexpensive. However, you need to immediately warn those who want to buy such a car – the maintenance of an SUV in any case will cost more than a passenger car of the same year. By the way, when buying a Terrano, it is necessary to avoid cars produced for the market of the Middle East and Africa (at one time, drivers drove cars from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Russia). These cars are absolutely not adapted for operation in our conditions, and besides, they have some original parts.
The salon of the first Terrano / Pathfinder is painfully rustic, especially by modern standards. There are serious mistakes in ergonomics. For example, “bibikalka” recessed into the hub of the steering wheel, and it is inconvenient to use. In addition, it sometimes sticks, and the beep can be triggered by itself.
As for off-road, then it Terrano / Pathfinder feels good, but still those who like to drive through the mud on Nissan SUVs can be advised not to choose a Terrano, but a more adapted Patrol.
But the suspension Terrano / Pathfinder has proven itself from the best side. If you drive a car on asphalt and only occasionally drive onto country roads, it will not require attention for a long time – many elements of the suspension and steering system serve 100 thousand km or more.
On the Terrano installed engines from 85 to 148 hp All motors are considered reliable and are maintained without special stresses of 300 thousand km each. If you treat the engine with love, then it will be enough for 500 thousand km. The most desirable engine for the Terrano is a 3.0-liter gasoline unit (136 hp, for the American market – 148 hp).
Freebies will not be
Nissan Terrano II compared with the Terrano / Pathfinder looks much more modern. As already mentioned, two companies were involved in its creation: Ford and Nissan. But Ford was intended mainly for the US market, but Nissan specialized in Europe.
Some buyers of the Nissan Terrano II initially had doubts about the quality of the car, because it was not collected in Japan, but in sunny Spanish Barcelona. There, as in Italy, the reliability of cars always, if not limping, then at least, was worse than that of the “Japanese”. However, you should not get very upset about this, because in Spain there was by and large only an assembly of cars, and all the main parts were brought from Japan. In addition, the Japanese are still constantly maintain strict control over the Spanish workers and do not allow them to “freeze”. One has only to say that cars assembled in Spain were delivered even to Japan itself, but were sold there under the name Mistral.
Another fact of the serious attitude of Nissan specialists to the quality of Spanish cars is that initially the European Nissan plant was built in … Japan!
