Ranting Canuck

A little over two months ago I purchased a Nissan Rogue SL All Wheel Drive (AWD) with leather and tech package. So basically this is a fully loader Nissan Rogue there is really no features that it is missing. I have put off writing up an article on the truck for a couple of reasons. The first being I want to make sure I had driven the car enough make a really educated review and also I wanted to have some pictures in the review where it was clean and not covered in snow.

This week I was finally able to get some decent pictures of my Rogue, see below and I am almost at eight thousand KM driven. The Rogue is a cross over vehicle meaning basically it is a cross between a car and an SUV / Truck. So it looks like a large car or a really small SUV. It main competition in the market is the Toyota RAV 4 and Honda CRV. The Nissan Rogue basically looks like a mini Nissan Murano which basically what it is.

As I have mentioned in previous posts I did test drive a lot of different cars before I settled on the Rogue. The main reason for this when I purchased my previous car, a Mazda 3 GT Sedan I did not test drive many other cards. I drove the Mazda 3 and I liked and ordered one. I felt that maybe if I drove more cars especially in the winter I maybe would have passed on the Mazda 3 and gone with a car I was more happier with.

Anyway I choose the Rogue over its main competitors the Honda CRV and Toyota Rav4 for several reasons. I liked the CRV but I felt it was little too plain, it was not flashy like the rogue is. I did like the Toyota Rav4 a lot when I drove it but again the Nissan Rogue was better looking and it was also significantly more then the Nissan Rogue was. Also at the time Toyota had comparatively high interest rates n the Rav4, something like six percent compared to Nissan’s three percent. Another reason I choose the Rogue was Heather was the most comfortable driving it of really all the cars that I drove, which is important I guess.

So as I mentioned I have put almost eight thousand kilometers on my Rogue and I am still loving the car. I picked it up in February so I had for some very significant snow storms. The Rogue performed great in the harsh winter what we had this year in south western Ontario. The all wheel drive kicked in as needed and I felt safe at all times, if I still my Mazda 3 I would have missed a lot meetings this year because it was horrible in the snow.

My Nissan Rogue SL has a 4 liter engine in it, but it still has guts and the power to get you out of trouble when you need it. The Rogue has a CVT transmission which gives it an extremely smooth ride, rather then a traditional transmission where you can feel the gears changing. The CVT and the smaller engine give the Rogue some pretty amazing fuel economy. It has a 60 liter tank and I am averaging about 600 – 650 KM per tank with that being am mix of city and highway driving. The second week I had the rogue I had to take to go on a longer trip, all freeway and I got closer to 800 KM on that tank of gas. This is in comparison to my Mazda 3 GT that I use to get 400 KM on a 50 liter tank.
One of the features that I wanted in my next car was a blue tooth package, I make a lot of client calls when I am driving and the police in Ontario are getting more and more militant about people using cell phones while driving. So I got the tech package in my Rogue and the blue tooth package works flawlessly. I have had several people comment that I actually sound better when I have them on hands free and driving then when I am using my Blackberry 8300 normally. The tech package also comes with XM satellite radio, which to be honest I have not used and probably I never will. I just don’t see the need for it, but I had to take it if wanted the blue tooth package.

My Rogue is black and I think it looks pretty flashy I have had a lot of people comment on the looks of the car. I did tint the drives and passengers windows, why the rear windows are tinted and front are not I am not sure. I also got the package which is black with red dots on it. The picture of this leather in the brochure does not do in justice, it really does look smart. I am finding that Rogue has a lot of usable cargo space or at least more then enough for me. My Mazda 3 had a large truck but it was odd shaped so much of it was not accessible.

I really do like my Rogue but there are some things that are annoying me. The first is that it does have a large blind spot which is fine if you know it is there. But if you do not know about it cars and even medium trucks can disappear into it. This is something they should look at fixing in later models.

My other major annoyance with the car is the small trip computer, it is small round display between the tachometer and speedometer. There is a lot room on the center dash board where they could have put a larger display. This is lack of a larger display also means that there is no navigation option for the Rogue in Canada. Not a big deal for me, I would never pay what most manufacturers want for a build in unit but it would be nice feature.

This leads me to a general annoyance about the auto industry in general. You can often get features on cars slated for American market but you can not get them for the Canadian market. For example in the states you can get Zeon head lights on the Rogue but not in Canada, why?

I have been extremely happy with my purchased of my fully load Nissan Rogue SL, there have been just some minor issues that I have run into. The fact that I like the Rogue says a lot about the handling. Historically I hated driving large cars and SUV’s they feel like you are driving a boat. But the Rogue really does feel and drive like a normal car but larger and more powerful like an SUV while still remain excellent fuel economy. I would strongly recommend anyone looking for a new vehicle at least drive the Rogue, you will not regret it.

More Pictures Below

Like the marks on the Bumper? Some idiot parked my brail.