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FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2012 .- driving.ca THE OTTAWA CITIZEN, SECTION D

The 2013 Nlssan Altima is loaded with time-saving devices such as a four-way rear camera that acts as a backup camera and blind-spot-warning system.

Altima surprises with opulence

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Nissan's familysedan offers

luxury fur'less~7~";'

DAVID BOOTH

NASHVILLE, Tennessee

Quietly, Nissan's Altimahas become Canada'sbest-selling Japanesefamily sedan, stealthi­ly overtaking and then

passing perennial front-runners,the Toyota Camry and Honda Ac­cord, once thought invincible. Notincluding the 2,000 or so coupessold in Canada that also bear theAltima name, that means Nissanowns more than 8 per cent of theCanadian family sedan segment.That, in case, you're wondering,translated into 12,537 sales lastyear.

Perhaps it's a measure ofmy in­creasingly bald palette and thegeriatric synapses it clothes, but

I still think of the Altima as the have appeased the marketersJohnny-come-lately of the mid- looking for differentiation, but itsized segment, its entire raison didnotmaketh~salesperson'sjob

d'~tre the addition of a cheaper, easier.four-eylinder family seGan to e Fast-fOl'ward 20 years and thesegment when Nissan 't overwhe1J;DiJ;!g impression of thestomach the idea ot. . - ne ly rntroduced 2013 editionlie-ing its Maxima to compete of the .Altima is- one of surpris­with the then-dominant Cam- ing opulence. Oh, sure, the com­ry. Splitting the segment into the Pam' till trump its bargain­more luxurious Maxjrna'1l.Dd the bll8ement ,price - so1J1ething itcheaper Altima seemed to make has to do as both the CamTy andsense back in 1992, Nissan then Accord increasingly sell on priCefrustrated that its superior but point - and the company is es­more expensiveV6-poweredMax- pecially proud of its parsimony atima could not compete in price the pumps. But the overwhelm­and sales with the Camry and Ac- ing sensation is one of surprisingcord, both available with four- luxury, the build quality, materi­cylinder engines. als and equipment level elevated

It may have been logical, but enough to make one wonder howit wasn't initially a huge success. Nissan will make its Maxima suf­In order to differentiate its now ficiently hedonistic to justify its(semi) competitive products the price premium.Altima was smaller and notice- For one thing, the Altima isably cheaper than the Maxima. fairly festooned with time-sav­While definitely reliable and pro- ing devices, including a four-wayviding relatively good value, it al- rear camera that does double­ways felt, well, lesser, the margin double duty as a backup cam­between the Maxima and Altima era, a detector of moving objectsseemingly gaping. That might (as in toddlers below eye level), a

lane departure warning system or swim on its frugality, so, de­and a blind spot warning sys- spite the addition of numeroustern. There's also streaming au- new features (see above: tires),dio via Bluetooth' hands-free text its base price has been reducedbymessaging via NissanConnect, a ~1,600. ',' " ",'TFT irifoonation display in the . ~ven inore important'..for 'themain gauge set and some seats g'(~~~OOd~l6Dtiiltim-(sOO;i­billed as "zero-graVity" that Nis- Nissan Leaf) is tlle' coinpany'ssan claitns ~e inspired by NASA claim that the Altima has the bestrooket ships (methinks the com- highwayfuel ec§)q01llY~all ' ,pany's MBAs were ptshing the, itsnon-hybrid OT diesel cempe '­hyperbole a. little too far on this tion, Indeed, the eIi1;i:re them.e forone).., the press introduction was "38;'

But, by far my favourite bit is the 2013's Environmental Protec­the Easy Fill Tire Alert, which not tion Agency-rated fuel economyonly monitors each tire's pressure in U.S. miles pergallon ('D:ansportindependently but also alerts you Canada figures are not expectedwhen you've pumped enough air for a few weeks, but it translatesback into the balky rubber dough- into roughly 6.2litres per100 kilo­nut, no fiddly tire pressure gauge metres). Our drive route was pep­needed. It might not sound like pered with "38" signs to celebratemuch, but it's another case of the newAltima's parsimony.just when you think there's noth-ing useful left to modernize, some See ALTIMA on page 02genius comes out with an advan-cement so obvious you wonder TO SEE more Nlssan Altlmawhy you didn't patent it 20 years photos and road tests, go toago and retire on the proceeds.

Despite its epicurean additions,Nissan feels the Altima will sink feARs

The 2013 Nissan Altima's engine spins slowly at highway speeds, dramatically improving fuel consumption.

Altima: Better roadholdingContinued from page Dl

One result of Nissan's obsessionwith fuel economy is thatit remainsthe only mainstream manufacturerfully committed to the quirky con­tinuously variable transmission.CVfs, unlike conventional auto­matics, which have distinct gears,vary the gear ratios, well, continu­ously. In effect, an automotive CVfoperates like a snowmobile trans­mission, the engine held at a cer­tain rpm while accelerating the carforward and the transmission grad­ually changing its gear ratios as thespeed increases (the opposite of anormal transmission, which sees anengine spin from low to high revs ineach gear while accelerating). Theissue is that the general motoringpublic, long used to the shifting ofdiscreet gears, finds it disconcertingto have a car accelerating while theengine note doesn't change. Puncha CVf-equipped car for a long ac­celeration run up a hill and it soonsounds like a tramp steamer strain­ing against a strong headwind. Mostcompanies have dropped the CVffor this reason.

On the other hand, Nissan cred­its improvements to its CVf with40 per cent ofthe Altima's fuel econ­omyimprovements(a36-kilogramreduction in weight, lower-rolling­resistance tires, electric steering, a"smart" alternator and various en­gine efficiency improvements ac­count for the rest). The majority ofthe CVf's gains come from its widerrange of available gear ratios (thedifference between its highest andlowest gear ratio), a whopping 7.0:1,says Nissan, wider than even thebest eight-speed automatics avail-

able. That means the Altima's en­gines (both the 2.5-litre four andwidely acclaimed VQ,'35DE 3.5L V6are mated to the high-tech tranny)spin quite slowly at highway speeds;hence, the Altima's dramatically im­proved highway consumption.

With the torquey and incrediblysmooth 3.5L V6, the CVf's com­portment disadvantages are hard­ly apparent. The engine hardlyev~ needs to rev hard and, even ifit does, NVH (noise, vibration andharshness) is so well contained thatit's little bother. The base 2.5L four,however, needs to rev harder and isrougher running, so the CVf's dron­ing exhaustbleat is more noticeable.It is, however, better contained thanearlier Nissan CVf efforts and thecompany has added a Sport setting,which artificially adds "gear shifts"so that we the elderly and inflexiblecan feel at home in our newfangledcar. Considering that the base fourrepresents about 90 per cent of allAltima sales, the effort was not mis­placed. Still, given a choice, I wouldopt for a conventional automatic­transmission.

Nissan has also upped the ante inroad holding, somehow incorporat­ing an even more sophisticated in­dependent rear suspension systeminto its bargain-basement price.New - and Nissan says a segmentfirst - control link bushings bet­ter dampen road noise (a notice­able improvement) while also help­ing toe angle control for better cor­nering. The Altima also featuressomething called Automatic Under­steer Control (AUC), a fancy namefor braking the inside·front wheelunder hard cornering to reduce thefront-wheel-drive layout's tradition-

al propensity to push the front en~., Drivinghere in Tennessee, where therural constabularyseems particular­ly vigilant, I decline to test Nissan'sclaims that it eliminates understeer.The company does claim, however,that, unlike vehicle stability controlsystems that are reactive (i.e., theystart all this braking of individualwheels after you've begun to losecontrol), AUC is proactive, detectingconditions that r¢ght lead to under­steeringand correct them before therubber gets all slidey. An electricallyboosted steering system completesthe handling equation, though Nis­san's system still incorporates hy­draulics for better feedback throughthe steering wheel. (It still feels over­boosted, though, like so manyAsiansteering systems.)

Alreadythe third-best-selling mid­sized sedan - and, as Nissan's pub­lic relation flacks so often mention,now ahead ofthe Camry and Accord- the Altima should continue itswinning streak, if for no other rea­son than all this goodness starts at amere $23,698.

Familysedans is suddenly a hyper­competitive segment. It seems likeonly a year ago we were telling youhow much more advanced Hyun­dai's new Sonata was. Since then,the Camry and Kia's Optima haveboth been refreshed and Ford's Fu­sion and the Chevy Malibu are duefor complete makeovers. It's quitea contrast to a few years ago whenpundits thought the family sedansegmentwas down for the count. So,yes, Nissan's remake of its hot-sell­ing Altima is excellent. It needs tobe.

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