Yahoo Autos 2017 Nissan Sentra NISMO
From the May 2017 issue
Nissan loyalists know that “NISMO” is a portmanteau for “Nissan Motorsports,” while to everyone else it is very nearly meaningless. And the brand is almost as empty of product as the word is of meaning. It’s a little extra snowcap on the towering mountain of power that is the GT-R. It’s wheels and a wing on the 370Z. It’s some extra weird on top of the pile of weird that is the Juke. But alas, in the Sentra, NISMO starts to assume real significance.
That is, assuming you avert your gaze from the engine room, where the NISMO carries the same turbo 1.6-liter as the equally new Sentra SR Turbo, with 188 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque. Instead, focus on the NISMO’s reinforced cowl, floorpan, and rear bulkhead. Notice the new rear dampers, and the revised tuning of the front struts and electrically assisted power steering. The Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ tires, in size 215/45ZR-18, are an inch larger and 10 millimeters wider than what’s available on any other Sentra.
There’s also a lot of red. Or, as the Italians would say, rosso. (Or in German, rot.) There are red accents on the front and rear fascias, and on the rocker panels, mirrors, steering wheel, seats, and center console. Heck, even the O in NISMO, the taillight lenses, and the honeycomb in the catalytic converters glow red. (That last one’s a guess.) And if you were wondering how, if the entire tach is red, it can indicate where redline is, Nissan has your answer: It turns from solid red into red hash marks. Duh.
But the hue does come with benefits. The seats it adorns are tremendously comfortable and supportive, having been designed with real humans in mind (and not just the slender jockeys most automakers chasing a sporting clientele imagine as their buyers). The NISMO’s ride is well controlled and comfortable, tauter than that of a Volkswagen GTI but without punishing the occupants. The handling skews more toward understeer than neutrality, but the car’s reflexes are sharp enough that it’s still fun. The steering is weighty and quick—if devoid of feel—and the pedal calibrations make it so easy to heel-and-toe that you’ll find yourself doing it unconsciously every time you even brush the brake pedal rolling into a lazy 45-mph curve or easing up behind a tractor-trailer on a crowded freeway. If all you do is stomp the middle pedal, the Sentra NISMO will stop from 70 mph in just 156 feet, which would have tied it for the win in our last test of $40,000 scorching hatches.
The speed is harder to come by than it is to dissipate. The 1.6 needs to wrap most of the way around the tach in first before meaningful power arrives, but the thrust is consistent from there on, and the gears in the six-speed manual (a CVT is available) are spaced such that the engine drops right back into the meat of the torque curve with every red-hash-mark shift. It’s satisfying to hustle, if slow; 7.0 seconds pass before 60 mph arrives. And it does need more rip in the exhaust note, for as is, there are dairy-barn levels of mooing. There are other specters of cheapness. In the example tested here, pressing the steering-wheel-mounted radio and cruise-control buttons honked the horn. And the headliner had a mouse-fur look to it not seen since GM’s darkest days.
While the $25,855 NISMO is a huge improvement over other Sentras, it’s no better than any of its competition, which includes some of the best performance values on the market—Volkswagen GTI, Ford Focus ST, even the Mazda 3. But it’s a strong indicator that NISMO might take on a deeper meaning for the brand’s mainstream cars. And what it means more than anything else is that we’d like to see how good NISMO could make the Sentra if the Sentra itself were a better starting point.
Specifications >
VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE AS TESTED: $27,570 (base price: $25,855)
ENGINE TYPE: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve inline-4, aluminum block and head, direct fuel injection
Displacement: 99 cu in, 1618 cc
Power: 188 hp @ 5600 rpm
Torque: 177 lb-ft @ 1600 rpm
TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual
DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 106.3 in
Length: 183.6 in
Width: 69.3 in Height: 58.9 in
Passenger volume: 96 cu ft
Trunk volume: 15 cu ft
Curb weight: 3043 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS:
Zero to 60 mph: 7.0 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 17.5 sec
Zero to 120 mph: 29.1 sec
Rolling start, 5–60 mph: 7.9 sec
Top gear, 30–50 mph: 11.2 sec
Top gear, 50–70 mph: 10.9 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 15.4 sec @ 94 mph
Top speed (drag limited): 131 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 156 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.88 g
FUEL ECONOMY:
EPA combined/city/hwy: 27/25/31 mpg
C/D observed: 25 mpg
