Video: 2016 Nissan Titan XD - First Look
By Cars.com Editors
January 12, 2015
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About the video
From the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Cars.com's Mark Williams takes a look at the 2016 Nissan Titan XD.
Transcript
(trunk slamming) (upbeat music) (brakes squealing) It's finally here. The 2016 Nissan Titan XD. We've waited almost 10 years for this vehicle, and thankfully, it looks like Nissan has done their homework.
They've brought out a half ton pickup truck, well, we'll get to that later, but a half ton pickup truck that's gonna go head to head with some vicious competition. The design, you're gonna have to decide on whether it looks great or whether you're not so sure, but for right now, let's take a closer look by going inside. Inside, the improvements Nissan has made with this new pickup truck, light years ahead of where they were before. Thank goodness. We love the gauge cluster, the center console looks very, very modern. Five different trim packages. We're inside the Pro-4X right now. Looks like it's gonna be a great off-roader. One of the features we especially like, all power train combinations, column shifter, frees up a ton of room here for the center console. One of the most interesting features to this truck that must've caused a tremendous amount of debate within Nissan when this was in the planning stages, is that they've essentially decided to create two different pickup trucks here. One light duty Titan, and here, what we see here, a stripped Titan XD. The XD stands for a heavier duty Titan, and that's essentially what we have here. A completely unique, stronger frame, fully welded, fully boxed. And the vehicle is only gonna be offered with the five liter V8 twin turbo Cummins. 310 horsepower, 550 foot pounds of torque makes it much stronger than Ram's eco diesel and a lot less powerful than the Duramax, the Ram Cummins in the heavy duties, or the Power Stroke. Nissan is trying to hit this sweet spot between a light duty diesel and a half ton and the heavy duty, big, powerful diesels that are in the heavy duties. Behind the Cummins is a six speed automatic transmission from Aisin. And the suspension strategy is essentially similar to other half ton pickup trucks. Double A arm, coil spring set up in front, live axle leaf springs in the back. One of the cool features that we can see from this exposed chassis is exactly what kind of technology is necessary to create the first half ton gooseneck trailer hitch. It looks incredibly cool from this angle, but it also looks pretty smooth and very integrated from the bed. We especially like that Nissan has stepped outside their comfort zone and installed an option like an integrated gooseneck trailer hitch that essentially just bolts right to the frame underneath the pickup bed. But that begs the question. Is this a heavy duty light, or is this a light duty plus pickup truck? From Nissan's point of view, they're saying there's a lot of people that are playing in that area. So many that it could be as maybe 150,000 new customers that are gonna be interested in this pickup truck. Whether that happens or not, we're gonna have to wait and see. But for right now, it looks like this truck is gonna shake things up in the half ton pickup truck world. And we can't wait to get one into our hands and do some real world testing. (engine revving)
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