#RentalReview: 2017 Nissan Quest - A Very American Japanese Minivan

So, on our road trip along the west coast of the US, I got an idea for a new series: #RentalReview! Because in my opinion, even “boring” rental cars can be really interesting, especially if they’re not available in the country you live in! So, to start things off, here’s my review of our rental car: A 2017 Nissan Quest. You can all join in and write an article about your rental car under the hashtag #RentalReview, I’m very excited to see what you’ve been driving around in!

Alright, let’s get into it. We rented this car at San Francisco Airport from rental car company Thrifty for two weeks. We decided to go for a minivan this time around, and not for a full-size sedan like we had during our visits to Florida in 2013 and 2015. The reason for that: My father was on a business trip to Las Vegas just a couple of weeks before we flew to San Francisco, and having booked a full-size sedan as usual, he was given the keys to a Chevrolet Malibu. This pissed my Dad off, considering that we had always got the bigger Impala in the past. Apparently, the Impala now counts as a luxury car, and the Malibu takes the spot in the full-size class (which is frankly ridiculous). As luxury class was too expensive and my father didn’t want to drive around in a Malibu yet again, he decided to go for a minivan, which was only slightly more expensive than the full-size, although I sadly can’t remember the exact price.

My Dad told me that we were most likely to get something along the lines of a Dodge Grand Caravan or a Chrysler Pacifica (latter of which I’m a huge fan of, it looks really good!), but that he still had the option to upgrade to a Pick-Up truck at the airport if he “felt like it”. Well, he didn’t, after we spent two hours looking for his laptop bag which he left on the Airtrain to the rental car terminal. After having reported the loss to the local lost-and-found office, it was turning dark, and we were quite exhausted from the long flight(s) anyways. So, my father decided to stick with the minivan, and got handed the keys to a Nissan. I was disappointed and moaned quietly “What’s the point of going to the US and then driving around in a Japanese car?”, but didn’t reinforce it any more because I was very tired and just wanted to get to the hotel. We walked through the rental car park, and with the press of a button on the key we saw lights flashing somewhere near the end. As we came closer, we realized just how enormous the car was. It was much taller than all the sedans and compacts around it, and stuck out of the parking spot by quite a bit. I noticed the “Quest” badge on the tailgate, a name I had never heard before - then we opened said piece of bodywork to load in our luggage. We had to fold down the third row first, but after having managed to do that, we were presented a huge cargo area.
We climbed into the front seats, and there were a couple of things I immediately noticed. The first thing that caught my eye was the dashboard - it was extremely wide, and the center console between the seats seemed to be twice as big as in the European cars I was used to. The interior was beige with a wood trim running across the dash and looked pretty nice overall. I also noticed the powered sliding doors in the rear as my father threw his jacket in the back seat, then he got behind the steering wheel and started the engine. The engine sounded surprisingly powerful, if not to say overpowered - helped of course by the fact that the car revved up like hell on startup. I later looked it up: The Quest’s powertrain consisted of a 3.5 liter V6 with 264 hp mated to a CVT gearbox.

A CVT, or Continuously Variable Transmission, takes some getting used to. My Dad, tired as he was, and unexperienced with the car (and quite overwhelmed by the size of it) tried to back it out of the parking spot - and whilst he only gave it a little bit of gas, the car took a huge leap backwards and we were lucky not to smash into any of the other rentals behind us. This taught my father the hard way that you have to be VERY careful when accelerating a CVT car - you really need to feather the pedal for it to launch in a controllable way. Getting this aggressive monster out of the tight parking garage proved quite difficult, but eventually we managed to do so and hit the highway. Our particular rental wasn’t equipped with the optional navigation system, although this was not a big deal as we preferred to use Google Maps anyways.

So, after having told you about the first impressions, let’s get to the actual reviewing part. For that, we’ll skip two weeks forward, and I will now sum up our experiences we had with this car. First of all, we drove it A LOT. After having spent two days in San Francisco, we drove all the way up to Seattle in two days (all the driving was done by my Dad, my Grand-Dad who had organized the entire trip wasn’t allowed to drive our rental - which he was quite happy about after having driven a Jeep Grand Cherokee for the week he had been to the US before we arrived), where we spent another couple of days before driving back south to Portland, then to Reno and from there back to San Francisco. All in all, we put about 2,000 miles / 3,200 km on the car - which wasn’t too much of a deal, considering that the car already had 60,000 miles / 100,000 km on the clock and was probably nearing its retirement. Judging by the exterior, the Nissan had been involved in a fender-bender at least once, as the color of the rear bumper and the small body panels below the taillights didn’t really match the rest of the car - though we were unable to tell whether that was due to them having been replaced or just repainted. There were scratches and dents all over the car anyways, especially the front and rear bumpers, which doesn’t surprise me at all considering just how big the Quest is and how aggressively it launches if you’re not careful enough.

After having spent two weeks with the Quest, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised: It might be a Japanese car, but without the badges you probably wouldn’t even notice it - it’s definitely the most American Japanese car I’ve ever experienced. The ride is very smooth, there is loads of space in the interior, and the engine is powerful enough to bring this two tonnes monster up to cruising speeds without any effort. The seats are very soft and comfortable - both the front and second row feature two captain’s chairs with armrests, and the third row consists of three normal seats that can be folded out from the trunk floor, although I didn’t examine the seating comfort back there. The powered sliding doors make getting in and out of the rear a hell lot more relaxed, and they can also be operated with the key, just like the horn - this seems to be a standard feature on American cars, in Germany however I have never seen anything like this. The rear seats have their own air conditioning controls and vents up in the ceiling, and there’s an unbelievable amount of cupholders - I counted 14 across the entire cabin. Cruise control was of course also on board, and in the end, I have to say that the Nissan Quest was really a lot better than I would have thought.
The only real point of criticism was the gas mileage: we managed an average of 10l / 100 km or 23.5 mpg - this probably isn’t too bad for American standards, and was okay considering how big and heavy the car is, but it still got us in trouble in the end when we stranded in a little village called Mineral after having driven through the Lassen Volcanic National Park on our way from Portland to Reno. We started the trip with half a tank remaining, but climbing all the way up to 2400 m above sea level drained the tank within no time. In Mineral however, we came across a friendly local woman who hooked us up with 20 gallons of fuel - huge thanks to her for saving our day!

So, if you now want to immediately buy a Nissan Quest after reading this #RentalReview - bad news. Why? The 4th generation of the Quest, the one shown here, was discontinued in 2016. Notice how it states “2017” in the title, though? There was still a limited production run in the first half of 2017, but all those cars went to rental companies. So, if you’re interested in the Quest, you either buy one used or rent one for two weeks or so, before they will eventually disappear from the rental car fleets…

Here’s a gallery with some more pictures of the Quest:

Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed this post - feel free to write your own #RentalReview, let’s see if we can make this a trend!
Tobi aka The Stig’s German Cousin

PS: Yes, my father did get his laptop back. The next day, the lost-and-found office at San Francisco Airport called him on his phone and reported they had found it, and he just had to drive back to SFO to pick it up.