When Nissan desperately craved a minivan to sell in the 1990s, it partnered with Ford to rebadge the Mercury Villager as the original Quest, an arrangement that lasted for another generation. The Villager was killed in the early 2000s, so Nissan then struck out on its own to create the funky third-gen Quest on the bones of the Altima sedan, but sales were terrible, generating rumors that the company would pull out of the segment altogether. A fourth Quest was in the cards, though, and to bring the van to life, Nissan found another partner: itself—specifically, the Japanese mother ship.
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Indeed, the 2011 Nissan Quest is twinned with the Japanese-market Elgrand, a strategy that allows the automaker to hedge its bets against picky U.S. shoppers; if we don’t buy the thing, production ostensibly can be re-allotted to Japan. (That’s where this new Quest will be built, unlike the previous model, which was assembled in Canton, Mississippi.) It’s a strategy that makes sense, but might need to be enacted sooner rather than later: Innovative styling isn’t typically among minivan buyers’ highest priorities, and this new Quest is as bizarre-looking as its slow-selling predecessor. That said, we like this van’s samurai-helmet-meets-the-suburbs look, and its wraparound glass and slabby body sides create some visual drama—at least as much as you can expect from a minivan, anyway. The new model’s styling is based on that of the Forum concept, which was penned in the U.S.
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Give Me More of Those Hot, Hot Features
Bold looks tend to turn off minivanites, but features and ease-of-use get them hot and bothered. As you’d expect, the Quest’s second and third rows fold to accommodate all the flat-pack furniture you can buy, but the chairs aren’t removable and don’t fold into the floor; instead, they fold forward to make a flat load surface, which Nissan notes allows constant access to the deep cargo well behind the third row. That well gets its own 60/40-split cover, too. Dodge, of course, offers the Stow ‘n Go second row, where the seats fold into the floor. In the Odyssey, the third row folds forward like the Quest’s, and must then be flipped back into the cargo well to create a flat load floor, which Nissan’s press materials imply is a terrible inconvenience.
But the Quest comes with its own inconveniences. Total passenger volume is about what you’d expect for the segment—all range from 160 to 170 cubic feet or so, depending on equipment—but the Quest’s non-removable seats eat up a fair chunk of cargo room when they’re flattened. At a maximum of 63.6 cubic feet behind the second row, it lags 20 to 30 cubes behind the Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna, and Dodge Grand Caravan. And its 108.4 cubic feet with the second and third rows folded trails the Odyssey by more than 40 cubic feet. (Admittedly, that Honda figure is with the seats pulled out, and only Toyota gives a figure for a folded, but installed, second row: 117.8 cubes.) The Quest is in line with its peers behind the third row, with 35.1 cubic feet available, though, and Nissan says that the step-in height through the sliding side doors is lower than on other minivans, which is a nice touch for both small kids and older folks.
Trims and Equipment Rundown—Take a Deep Breath
The Quest comes decently equipped to battle the segment leaders, but doesn’t appear to offer many innovations of the type that sway shoppers. The lineup starts with the $28,550 S, works through intermediate SV and SL trims, and is topped by the LE. (Pricing for the other trims is unavailable as of this writing, but we expect it to hew as close to the Japanese competition as the base price does.) The S could stand for “stripper” here, with the highlights of the features list being 16-inch steelies, cloth seats, cruise control, manual front seats, a four-speaker stereo, and keyless entry and starting. Move up a rung, and you add a leather-wrapped steering wheel, power-sliding side doors, 16-inch aluminum wheels, a six-speaker stereo with 4.3-inch color display, iPod and Bluetooth connectivity, a backup camera, and an auto-dimming rearview mirror.
The SL opens up the ability to add option packages, including a rear DVD entertainment system with 11-inch screen (the Honda and Toyota both offer much larger screens that feature split-display capability for multiple inputs), a set of two opening sunroofs, and a Bose package that adds to the DVD player a bunch of speakers and satellite radio. It also nabs roof rails, a power liftgate, heated and powered front seats, leather upholstery, and an easier-to-operate third-row folding mechanism. The full-boat LE includes all of the above save the optional dual sunroofs, and it’s the only way to get a built-in nav system, Nissan’s fancy air-purifying climate control, and a blind-spot warning system, which are all standard. It also has a power function for raising the third row.
One neat feature: The tire-pressure-monitoring system on all Quests has a feature first seen on the Infiniti QX56, whereby the hazard lights flash when air begins flowing into the tire, and the horn softly beeps when the desired pressure is reached.
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Familiar Powertrain
The Quest powertrain consists of Nissan’s VQ35DE V-6 mated exclusively to a CVT; the engine is the same as the one in the Altima and Murano with which this van shares its platform, so we expect lively acceleration. The 253 hp and 236 lb-ft of torque found here are pretty much in line with the Odyssey (248 hp/250 lb-ft) and Sienna (265 hp/245 lb-ft) V-6s, but pale a bit in comparison to the Grand Caravan’s 283 hp and 260 lb-ft from its Pentastar V-6. The Quest, like nearly all of its competitors, routes its power only to its front wheels; the Sienna is the only one that can be ordered with all-wheel drive. Size-wise, the Quest pretty much falls in line with those three segment leaders, although it’s a bit narrower and taller than those offerings.
With engine output similar to its peers’, no huge advancements in minivan flexibility or fabulousness, and somewhat compromised cargo room, it’s going to be tough for the Quest to stand out. It seems Nissan is again depending on styling to separate its minivan—a dangerous path, as the company should well know—and it’s not as though the segment leaders have made any recent missteps. The new-for-2011 Odyssey and Sienna drive well and offer at least one standout feature this Quest doesn’t, and the 2011 Grand Caravan has taken big leaps forward in powertrain and interior refinement. We’re looking forward to gathering all these vans and seeing if the quirky Nissan can improve on the third-gen’s fourth-of-five showing in our last minivan comparo, but it seems this Quest—on paper—may end up where the old one left off when it goes on sale early next year. At least it looks pretty rad.
