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Before one gets inside, one might think that the Patrol
would be difficult to drive, unless you're related to the Incredible Hulk.
However, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Nissan has apparently decided to make everything very soft and easy for
the driver, perhaps to a fault. The
clutch on this five-speed manual model is very easy to depress and hold down to
the floor—we were reminded of Nissan's luxury cars like the Maxima.
Switching from the Patrol to an Accord, I suddenly realized how stiff the
Accord's clutch really is! In
addition to the welcome softness, it's quite easy to modulate the level of
clutch engagement. If only the gearshift itself was as cooperative. The shifter feels very vague and hesitant. Another remnant from the 80s Nissans? You'd really have to give it a good shove before it goes into the proper gate. This is a pity because a good shifter is necessary with the massive 4.2-liter diesel engine. The engine redlines at 4500 rpm, so you'll need to shift often when accelerating from standstill. The large capacity, though, translates to high torque, and that means that you can leave it in a high gear and this wagon will still pull quite strongly. The car actually has ten gears, because in addition to the 2-wheel drive and 4-wheel drive high mode, as a true offroader it had a 4wd low range. Just for fun, we tried out the low range 4wd in the parking lot of Cardinal Santos Hospital. What safer place to do something insane? Actually, we couldn't do much insane driving because in 4wd the Patrol moves veeeeerrrrry slowly. It's like watching a time lapse film without the time lapse. The engine growled mightily, and we could feel the thrum of 270 Nm being transferred to all four enormous 15-inch wheels, and for getting through mud or rough terrain, this transmission will clearly do the trick. After we got out of the hospital, we tried out the other mode, the 4wd high, to see if it will improve its handling. Well, we discovered that the Patrol is no Porsche Turbo 4wd. Engaging the 4wd high resulted in massive under steer: the Patrol didn't want to turn into bends, and we actually had to adjust our judgment of the Patrol's turning radius. Perhaps the 4wd would be helpful in low-traction situations like floods, dirty roads, rainy weather (that just summarizes the possible road conditions in Metro Manila), but it results in car behavior that is quite disconcerting. After trying it for a few minutes, we had enough of that and stayed with 2wd for the rest of the day. |
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