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New Models
DRIVEN: Nissan Altima Goes Premium
The 2013 sedan is upgraded in styling and drivability while providing much-improved handling, comfort and fuel mileage.
Nissan Altima gets a retuned suspension for 2013 that improves balance and handling. (Photo: Nissan)
Nissan set out to create a game changer as its 2013 Altima, a perilous course considering the midsize sedan’s booming sales success during the past few years, last year coming in just behind perennial class leader Toyota Camry.
What they’ve come up with is a fifth-generation Altima with a premium look and feel, improved handling and towering fuel-mileage ratings that include a class-leading 38 miles per gallon on the highway for its four-cylinder model.
The automaker introduced its important new prodigy to the motoring press at its headquarters and assembly plant in Smyrna, Tenn., just outside of Nashville, where the Altima has been built since 1992.
Part of the Altima design teams’ emphasis was to dial in tighter stability and handling – the beautiful, winding back roads where we tested the pre-production cars could have something to do with that. You could just see the chassis engineers buzzing around these rural blacktops, dreaming up ways to make their sedan handle better on the curves.
What they came up with was an interesting new multi-link rear suspension that uses an innovation that Nissan calls connect bushings. Mounted low in a steel framework, these are designed to provide solid lateral rigidity for added stability as well as allowing the rear wheels to toe in slightly to enhance cornering.
The favorable result was made plain during our enjoyable drive, the Altima feeling nimble and responsive, maintaining a balanced poise and reacting well to steering and throttle inputs. The suspension feels firm but never harsh, although these country roads were very smooth and well-paved, perhaps another benefit of a booming local automotive economy.
The ride is impressively quiet and competent, both on the smooth asphalt and on freeway concrete.
The steering is also right on with good feedback and response. Nissan uses a more-complex but more-driver-friendly electro-hydraulic steering system rather than all electric, which is what most automakers have switched to in recent years, and the steering feels livelier and more direct as a result.
Another handling plus is Active Understeer Control, the first such application in this midsize segment. It applies the brake to the inside front wheel during cornering, effectively reducing the push of a nose-heavy front-wheel-drive car.
We spent most of our time in the 2.5-liter four-cylinder model – there’s also a 3.5-liter V6 upgrade – hooked up with the only transmission available for 2013, a continuously variable automatic. While driving enthusiasts might groan, having experienced the typical droning and disconnected-feeling CVTs of the past, Nissan’s newly designed unit is actually not bad at all. In other words, I didn’t hate it.
Power delivery is fairly immediate under all conditions, sans the annoying rpm climbs when you step on the gas that give most CTV cars that power-boat sensation. The powertrain actually felt natural and fairly imperceptible, unlike most CVTs; I wasn’t constantly being reminded of its operation. There’s paddle shifting available in the upper-end models that allows a driver to pick out and hold ratios that replicate actual gear changes.
What they’ve come up with is a fifth-generation Altima with a premium look and feel, improved handling and towering fuel-mileage ratings that include a class-leading 38 miles per gallon on the highway for its four-cylinder model.
The automaker introduced its important new prodigy to the motoring press at its headquarters and assembly plant in Smyrna, Tenn., just outside of Nashville, where the Altima has been built since 1992.
Part of the Altima design teams’ emphasis was to dial in tighter stability and handling – the beautiful, winding back roads where we tested the pre-production cars could have something to do with that. You could just see the chassis engineers buzzing around these rural blacktops, dreaming up ways to make their sedan handle better on the curves.
What they came up with was an interesting new multi-link rear suspension that uses an innovation that Nissan calls connect bushings. Mounted low in a steel framework, these are designed to provide solid lateral rigidity for added stability as well as allowing the rear wheels to toe in slightly to enhance cornering.
The favorable result was made plain during our enjoyable drive, the Altima feeling nimble and responsive, maintaining a balanced poise and reacting well to steering and throttle inputs. The suspension feels firm but never harsh, although these country roads were very smooth and well-paved, perhaps another benefit of a booming local automotive economy.
The ride is impressively quiet and competent, both on the smooth asphalt and on freeway concrete.
The steering is also right on with good feedback and response. Nissan uses a more-complex but more-driver-friendly electro-hydraulic steering system rather than all electric, which is what most automakers have switched to in recent years, and the steering feels livelier and more direct as a result.
Another handling plus is Active Understeer Control, the first such application in this midsize segment. It applies the brake to the inside front wheel during cornering, effectively reducing the push of a nose-heavy front-wheel-drive car.
We spent most of our time in the 2.5-liter four-cylinder model – there’s also a 3.5-liter V6 upgrade – hooked up with the only transmission available for 2013, a continuously variable automatic. While driving enthusiasts might groan, having experienced the typical droning and disconnected-feeling CVTs of the past, Nissan’s newly designed unit is actually not bad at all. In other words, I didn’t hate it.
Power delivery is fairly immediate under all conditions, sans the annoying rpm climbs when you step on the gas that give most CTV cars that power-boat sensation. The powertrain actually felt natural and fairly imperceptible, unlike most CVTs; I wasn’t constantly being reminded of its operation. There’s paddle shifting available in the upper-end models that allows a driver to pick out and hold ratios that replicate actual gear changes.
2014 Cadillac CTS
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