Nissan Patrol Estate 1998 - Present

Nissan have a history of making big, solid 4X4s and if you were looking at a model to really embody this, the patrol could easily be the model that you ended up with.  When you see the Big Nissan pull up you almost expect Arnie to step out and make deliver a terrible one liner.  The Patrol is the sort of motor that will be purchased by serious off roaders, but this is largely because the on road manners are not that great.  It’s versatile but slow and unrefined, but at the same time pretty unstoppable.

The Patrol is a huge car and on the inside it offers the sort of space that you’d expect to see in a huge car.  There are three rows of seats to play with, which means good room for passengers.  Unusually the rear seats are just about big enough to allow adults to travel in comfort.  The front and middle row of seats are extremely comfortable, with ample room for three across the middle row.  Head and legroom throughout the cabin is extremely generous.  All of the seats slit ad fold to offer decent load space and the split rear doors facilitate loading the boot easily, although occasionally take up too much room to open.  At it’s launch in 1998 the Patrol came I either three or five door, but thankfully is now only available in five door.  Making a car that big but with only three doors made little sense.

Now you’ve got the Patrol loaded up with either people or stuff it’s time to pull off.  The big Nissan is equipped with a substantial oil burning unit under the bonnet.  Depending upon when the vehicle was made it will have either the 2.8 TD or the 3.0 Di engine to power it.  The 2.8 was solid and reliable but was at the same time noisy and unrefined.  It offered lots of low down power, but this faded quite early and so the Patrol required a lot of work through the gears to keep the car in the power band.  The 3.0Di that replaced it in 2000 offered power further up the rev range but still not that far up the rev range and as a result takes a while to get any great speed up.  0 – 60 times are 17.8 seconds for the 2.8 and 14.7 seconds for the 3.0 Di. Top speeds are 96 and 99 mph respectively and the fuel figures make painful reading at 25 and 26 mpg.  They’re the sort of numbers that at least ensure that you’re going to be committed to owning that car and willing to pay for the privilege. 

On the road the Patrol is something of a fish out of water.  Off road the massive ground clearance and impressive suspension leave the Patrol able to come with almost any terrain.  The Patrol's off-roading ability is achieved through a switchable rear/four-wheel-drive powertrain and high/low ratio manual gearbox; the free-wheeling hubs have a manual lock, so it's very much a DIY, select-it-yourself experience rather than a 4x4 which does it all for you.  As long as you know what you need the Patrol can deliver, but for the uninitiated it is easy to set up wrongly and end up with a car that’s unsuitable, especially for the school run.

The Patrol is a true off road beast.  In the right hands it offers ample performance and wide versatility.  In the wrong hands however it’s easy to set up badly and is expensive to run.  They come with a relatively modest price tag but if the yummy mummies in Chelsea opt for this tractor for the school run they probably won’t enjoy the experience.

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