Nissan Pathfinder Ti 2019 Tow Test Review

The Nissan Pathfinder has come a long way from its Navara ute-based origins with the current unibody platform shared with Altima, Maxima and Murano, all of course now defunct Nissan products.

Built in Tennessee, the Pathfinder is very much an American market-oriented SUV, with traits such as a large body, roomy interior and smooth if not subtle chassis refinement.

While Nissan has squeezed out a lot of life from the R52 Pathfinder (with the model first seeing the light of day at the 2012 New York show and arriving here a year later), it had a major facelift and performance tweaks in 2017 and this year has been served up with equipment updates.

While you can find all the changes for the rest of the range here, the updates for the top-shelf Ti petrol version in this tow test are restricted to the inclusion of rear seat heaters, remote engine start and rear door alert.

The $66,390 2019 Nissan Pathfinder Ti V6 is one step below the premium model of the range (the $69,390 Pathfinder Ti Hybrid) and has an 8.0-inch colour touch-screen with Advanced Drive Assist technology, Bluetooth telephony and audio streaming, sat-nav, voice control and a 13-speaker BOSE audio system.

There’s also heated/cooled front seats, heated outer second-row seats, adaptive cruise control, USB ports in the second row, motion-activated tailgate, front and rear entertainment system with rear wireless headphones and twin sunroofs.

Safety equipment is well covered off with autonomous emergency braking, forward collision warning and blind-spot warning, rear cross-traffic alert, auto-levelling LED headlights and a 360-degree camera with Moving Object Detection.

While the Pathfinder Ti V6 misses out on the premium model’s hybrid technology, it has superior towing capacity at 2700kg (with 270kg maximum on the towball).

At 1960mm wide and 5042mm long, it’s no surprise that the Pathfinder feels big driving around tight urban streets, and shows some poorly thought out design elements during the urban shuffle such as large side mirrors that can obstruct the driver’s view when turning.

The V6 is responsive though, and you don’t really notice the CVT’s knack for flaring revs until you give the throttle a hard shove — it has plenty of torque down low that you rarely need to access the ample 202kW that arrives at a peaky 6500rpm.

The pay-off for being a big wagon is interior size; it’s a very comfortable, large space for five occupants in the first two rows, with the third row pair each getting a less than spacious pew, but it’s better back in the cheap seats than most similar SUVs.

Most will buy this sort of wagon to accommodate a crew of kids, but even when adult friends or relatives need a seat they’ll not have to fold themselves in back there. Not only is the cabin comfortable, but it has a quality feel and plenty of storage space.

The Pathfinder’s age is showing behind the wheel, where there are numerous fussy switches and buttons you have to get used to and odd omissions such as no digital speedo and no electric parking brake (it’s a clunky foot-operated pedal instead).

When the urban grind shifts to twisting country roads, this large SUV is more about comfortable cruising than corner carving. It rides well, although steering is light and not all that responsive.

We hooked up a Jayco Expanda tandem-axle van borrowed from Jayco Sydney in St Marys NSW, which weighed around 2200kg and had a measured towball mass of 200kg.

While the front of the Nissan Pathfinder didn’t rise much with the caravan hitched up (15mm), the back dropped 40mm. The Pathfinder’s stance became obviously back-down with the van on. The question was, would it affect handling dynamics?

The Pathfinder quickly got up to a 100km/h cruising speed on the highway, and felt responsive despite the 2200kg behind it. The transmission didn’t need to constantly change ‘gears’ (it’s a seven-step CVT) and could rely on the engine’s low-rpm torque to cruise.

On our test hill climb the Pathfinder could easily stay on the 90km/h speed limit during the steep climb, although it needed to delve into the power band to do so.

On the descent, engine braking was not as promising, with speed past the 70km/h start speed at the top of the hill by 5km/h at our measuring point -- and increasing.

Stability was not bad while sitting on 100km/h on the freeway and highways, the rig not wanting to yaw when passing large trucks or when going over undulations.

Having said that, it didn’t seem totally secure on the road, with large dips setting off pitching and with slight movement at the steering wheel replicating a (mild) evasive manoeuvre, the rig became unsettled and began to yaw.

While we saw a decent fuel figure of 9.1L/100km in mostly freeway solo touring, that quickly rose to mid-teens during several days of short suburban hops.

With the caravan behind, the Pathfinder drank fuel at a reasonable 16.4L/100km. With the Pathfinder’s 73-litre fuel tank, you’ll get about 395km of touring at this fuel consumption figure with a 50km safety margin.

The Pathfinder’s rear springs seem too soft for towing, so it could do with either helper springs at the back or possibly a Weight Distribution Hitch.

Depending on how much towball download you have, a WDH may be overkill though -- the body didn’t rise significantly with the 200kg towball download as tested.

By chance, we met up with a current Pathfinder owner with a caravan hitched up, and couldn’t help but notice how level their Pathfinder sat. The owner reported that fitting airbag helper springs in the rear improved towing stability and ride significantly.

The 2019 Nissan Pathfinder is a smooth, comfortable, large and well-featured wagon that covers off workday wagon duties and occasional towing well.

While its towing stability was slightly compromised by soft rear springs (which might be fixed with stiffer rear springs or helper springs), towing fuel consumption was reasonable for a petrol V6 and performance with a van behind was more than adequate.

How much does the 2019 Nissan Pathfinder Ti cost?
Price: $66,390 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 3.5-litre V6 petrol
Output: 202kW/340Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed continuously variable
Fuel: 10.1L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 234g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star (ANCAP 2013)