Nissan has reinvented the Altima for the second time in its four generations.
The Nissan Altima has been completely redesigned for 2007. It offers more performance, comfort, safety, economy and better looks than last year’s model.
Now it looks more like the Maxima. It’s a couple of inches shorter on the outside, but it has more room inside, including a roomy trunk.
Folding rear seats allow the trunk to expand into the cabin for hauling large, long items.
The goal of the redesign was to bring the feel and power of a luxury car to this midsize sedan for everyone, and Nissan has succeeded, at least with the Altima model that has the V6 engine and all the options, including the luxurious leather.
Models with the four-cylinder engine still exist, offering good power and getting 26 miles per gallon city and 34 highway.
Standard equipment on the 2.5 includes cloth seats, 16-inch steel wheels, 60/40 split-folding rear seats, power windows, power door locks, cruise control, halogen headlights, electric power steering, AM/FM/CD with four speakers, vehicle information display and smart key with push button start. Air conditioning is not standard.
The 2.5S adds air conditioning, a six-speaker sound system, remote keyless entry, power side mirrors, and speed-sensitive intermittent wipers, among other smaller things.
The 2.5SL uses the continuously variable transmission and adds a leather interior with heated front seats and a power driver’s seat, a moonroof, alloy wheels, dual-zone climate controls, and rear air-conditioning vents, among other smaller things. .
When redesigning the Altima, Nissan engineers were tasked with creating more cabin space and given one less inch to work with, due to the reduced wheelbase. They achieved their goal by stretching the distance between the A-pillar and C-pillar, thereby shortening the hood and bed. There’s 1.7 inches less legroom in the front, but 3.1 inches more in the rear, and that’s a lot; however, 0.8 inches of rear headroom has been lost. Trunk space has grown from 15.6 cubic feet to 17.9.
The seats are relatively big. They also have power lumbar support and rise higher, something most cars do these days as people need a better view of the road, with all SUVs blocking visibility.
The suspension has been redesigned on the new rigid frame and passed this difficult test with flying colors. It is quite firm; There’s no rocking in switchbacks, so the steering stays put. And it wasn’t hard on the uneven parts of the road. He took some good bumps without flinching.
The speed-sensitive rack-and-pinion electric power steering works well and, because it uses less power than hydraulics, improves fuel economy by a touch. The Altima 3.5SL doesn’t look like a sports sedan, but the handling is plenty agile.
But the real engineering breakthrough could be in the CVT, or continuously variable transmission. This is the fourth generation of this transmission design, which does not have the separate gears of a standard automatic transmission, and Nissan has excelled in this technology. The Sentra’s CVT, for example, has only two ranges. But the CVT in the Altima has a manual mode which, in effect, makes the transmission a six-speed.
We love it because it is true to us. He is totally sensitive and obedient. He did things that manual mode in some expensive cars (Mercedes and BMW, to name two) apparently never dreamed of. She listened to the driver. We challenged him by going all the way up to sixth gear at no more than 30 mph, then back down, and he made each shift rather than ignore them, although it’s unlikely they would have under normal driving conditions.