Up until the early-1970s the Detroit-based automakers absolutely dominated the American market. However, ever since then they have progressively lost share to brands from Asia and Europe in virtually every segment of the market, save one. Somehow Detroit has managed to maintain a near stranglehold on the full-size pickup truck. After what can only described as a swing and whiff with its original Titan pickup, Nissan is back to try again and this time they have really stepped up their game. But is it enough?
When Nissan first revealed the new Titan at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show, it took people by surprise. While Nissan was planning a full-line of Titans to take on the incumbents, they showed only one variant in Detroit, the Titan XD crew-cab with a Cummins 5.0-liter V8 diesel. They promised more variations over time and by early 2017 we’ll have a full lineup with regular, extended and crew-cab models as well as a couple of gas engines.
The long road to a second-generation Titan
Before looking forward, let’s take a look back. The original Titan launched in 2003 and had an unusually long life cycle of 12 years. It wasn’t meant to stay around that long but circumstances conspired to make it turn out that way. Way back in 2007 or so, Nissan actually came to an agreement with the newly divorced Chrysler Group to jointly develop new full-size pickup trucks based on the Ram platform. At that time Chrysler was planning to be Cummins’ first customer for its new smaller diesel V8 in the Ram 1500, after using the big 6.7-liter Cummins six for many years in heavy-duty pickups.
Sadly, we all know about the events that transpired in the fall of 2008 which ultimately triggered Chrysler’s bankruptcy reorganization and a takeover by Fiat. The new management decided that sharing the platform of one its biggest cash cows with a competitor probably wasn’t a wise move and also dropped plans to use the Cummins V8 in favor of a VM Motori 3.0-liter V6 that Fiat had a hand in developing.
That left Nissan with a decision to make about the fate their truck line. Coming to the conclusion that the profit potential in full-size pickups was too large to ignore, they took the Cummins V8 and built a whole new truck around it. Thus we have the Titan XD. Given the time that companies put into branding, the decision to use the XD brand rather than the more ubiquitous HD was surely not coincidental. The threshold between the so-called light-duty, half-ton class 1 pickups and heavy-duty trucks is based on the gross vehicle weight rating (the curb weight plus the payload). The upper limit for light-duty trucks is 8,500-pounds. The Titan XD has a GVWR of just shy of 9,000-pounds.
While that technically makes it a class 2 heavy duty truck like the F-250, Silverado 2500 and Ram 2500, the GVWR is more than 1,000-pounds less than the Ford and 500 less than the Chevy. That wouldn’t be a problem if the Titan’s curb weight was less than the competitors, the high-end Platinum Reserve model I drove was actually 500 to 700 pounds heavier than the domestic brands equivalent models. That smaller gap between curb weight and GVWR comes right out of payload and towing capability. In some ways, the Titan XD is more like a class 1.5.
Click here to compare the Titan to its competition
A lot of that extra mass comes from the XD’s unique heavy duty frame which is completely different from the frame that underpins the upcoming light-duty Titan. With 2,000-pounds of payload and 12,000-pounds of towing capability for the four-wheel-drive Titan, it comes up just shy of the 5.0-liter gas V8 F-150 but beats the Ram and Silverado 1500s. However, it does come up short against the class 2 competition. Without any detailed performance testing, let’s just stipulate that the Titan XD is roughly on a par with the best of the light-duty full-size pickups and move on.
What’s it like to live with a Titan day to day? Frankly, if you’ve driven any of the current crop of big pickups apart from the Toyota Tundra, nothing about the Titan will be either particularly shockingly good or disappointing. I mention the Tundra only as a reminder that frankly, it is just not up to the current truck standards in terms of driving dynamics or interior fit, finish and materials.
The Titans I drove for a week in Michigan and for a few hours in California in early August were all of the Platinum Reserve variety. If you’ve been paying any attention to the truck and SUV market in recent years, you may have noticed that automakers seem to launch new premium variants every few months. At the 2016 Chicago Auto Show, Ford marketing chief Mark LaNeve revealed that one third of F-series sales are of the four premium trims, the Platinum, Limited, Lariat and Raptor and it’s likely that GM and Fiat Chrysler are seeing similar results. Those premium trucks are what help subsidize the losses on small cars and generate huge profit-sharing bonuses every year.
2016 Nissan Titan XD
At Nissan, the 2016 Titan XD starts at just over $35,000 while the Platinum Reserve jumps to over $60,000 and my tester ran over $63,000. While the lovely leather and wood trim in the Titan cab was a pleasure for the senses, I’m pretty sure it did not add nearly $30,000 to the bill of materials to build it. But then that’s the whole point. Tens of thousands of dollars in profit margin on each of these trucks that Nissan (or any other automaker) sells offset the money lost on cars like the electric Leaf or gasoline-fueled Versa.
This is the difference between Tesla and other automakers and it’s why all those other companies want to offer more trucks and utilities even if they can’t achieve F-150 sales volumes. Tesla doesn’t have these high-margin vehicles to offset cars like the Model 3 so they have to keep pushing things like the $10,000 ludicrous mode to knock the 0-60 time from the insane 3.1 seconds to just 2.8. No one will ever notice that 0.3 seconds, but they are helping to fund the future. On the other hand, you will notice the leather in this truck.
What is remarkable about the Titan and other modern trucks is how utterly un-truck-like they behave on the road. Not so long ago, an unladen pickup going around a corner on pock-marked Michigan roads would be skittering around and even in a straight line it would have a bouncy quality to the ride. While I wouldn’t describe the Titan XD as supple, its suspension does an admirable job of controlling body motions even without a load in the back.
While you might expect a truck with such a comfortable ride to lose its composure when put to work, an off-road session in Carmel Valley demonstrated that it could handle crawling over rough terrain as well. While the Titan’s girth means it won’t fit through some of the crevices that a Jeep Wrangler might be able to handle, its ample wheel travel and stiff frame where surprisingly good. In stock form, the Titan isn’t go to beat a Ford Raptor either, but it’s not meant too. Yet.
2016 Nissan Titan XD
Over the coming months Nissan will also be launching half-ton and regular cab variants of the Titan which look generally the same as the XD but actually ride on a completely different frame. These are targeted more at the commercial work truck crowd. All of the Titans offer some very handy features as either standard or optional like the Utili-track bed channel lock-down system, in-bed lighting, lockable storage boxes in the back corners of the bed and a retractable step to get up into the bed.
Technology features like navigation, blindspot monitoring and cross-traffic alert are very handy but one area where the Titan lacks compared to some of the competition is USB ports. Only one is offered up front along with a pair of 12-volt sockets. If Nissan is serious about hitting commercial customers, they will need more USB outlets to plug in phones, tablets and even laptops as several of those now use UBS type-C for charging.
Aside from the USB shortage, the new Titan is now very much a player in the full-size truck segment. Aside from the Cummins V8, it doesn’t really break any new ground or blow anyone else away on specs but it is capable and refined enough to be worthy of consideration alongside the Detroit-brand machines.
Click here for specifications of the 2016 Nissan Titan XD
