Video: 2025 Nissan Armada Review: Space, Power and Luxury, Now With Off-Road Chops

It is much more capable than, say, a Pathfinder Rock Creek. Rock Creek trims are more just about the appearance of going off road; this actually has the goods to do it. It starts with skid plates underneath. You've got skid plates protecting the radiator, the transfer case, and the fuel tank, so you've got a decent amount of underbody protection. The air suspension on this thing can also raise and lower the body of the vehicle, not the chassis. It's still only got a maximum of 9.6 inches of actual height because that's the lowest point on the chassis; that would be the rear suspension, but you can actually lift the body a little bit higher, up to two inches, and that's good for things like breakover angle and approach angles, things like that. Trying to save the actual plastic bits of the body instead of getting them damaged on rocks that you might be going over or approaching. It rides on 20-inch all-terrain tires, which normally are a pretty good compromise between off-road ability and on-road quietness and refinement. But on a day like today where we are here in Tennessee where it is nothing but mud at the moment, you really kinda want mud-terrain tires. If you're thinking of taking your PRO-4X Armada truly as an off-road machine, you're gonna wanna upgrade the tires probably to more something a little bit more chunky, a little bit more mud terrain. It'll make it a little bit louder on road, but it will make it probably a lot more capable off-road. You have probably the most significant change for the PRO-4X however, is the locking rear differential. It comes into play in a couple of different drive modes of which there are now 8 on the PRO-4X, including things like mud and ruts and other different drive modes as well to help you go through off-road obstacles a little bit more easily. Overall the interior is fantastic; it's also unique to the PRO-4X. It's a charcoal color but it's got really nice quilted stitching. It's got this lava-orange stitching all the way throughout it as well. But one of the more interesting things I think about it is the dual display screens. You can do some interesting things with them, like have your invisible hood feature that allows you to see over obstacles. If you happen to be at a high angle and you can't see over the hood, this comes into play where it allows you to actually see what's in front of the vehicle and below it on the screens in front of you. There's also a widening aspect to it as well. You push a certain button here on the display screen once you've got the vehicle in motion and it actually employs both screens as your forward camera view, which really does widen the aspect of things and allows you to have a lot more visibility. It's something I haven't seen on any other vehicle in this category quite frankly. And why not? (chuckles) You've got all this screen in front of you. Use all of it for this whole wide aspect view. One of the things they did is demonstrated just how easy it is to drive this vehicle without being able to see out the windshield by covering it up and sending us on an obstacle course through a couple of different hay bales and a simulated bridge, and it worked pretty well. So overall the the changes to the PRO-4X to make it a more capable off-road machine, they're real. It actually can do these things off road. I just wish that we'd had a little bit better weather today to actually explore it. Put it in low range, lock that rear differential, and the thing actually has quite a lot of traction, and this electronic air suspension really does smooth out the ride off road quite nicely. Again, the only thing I would really probably upgrade are the tires to something a little bit more off-road appropriate. But frankly, if you're not out in the mud, this thing actually would work quite well in the dry or in the dirt or over rocks as well. And thanks to the stuff that it has underneath, you're pretty well protected from any kind of off-road obstacles. Throttle response when you're in off-road modes is also really quite good. You're not lacking for torque going up any of these hills, and you're really not having any problem with traction despite the fact that we're sliding a little bit sideways. But again, that's really just the wet grass and mud. But the Armada is not just about off-roading. Now you've also got some improved towing capabilities as well. The PRO-4X that we're currently driving also can tow really quite well. The maximum towing rating is 8,500 pounds, which is pretty significant. We're actually towing a 6,500-pound Airstream trailer behind us right now, and we're able to do this with relative ease because there's a new powertrain for the Armada for 2025. Gone is the old V8 engine, and in its place we now have a twin turbocharged 3.5-liter V6. It's similar to the one that you'll find in the Nissan GTR, but it has been massaged and modified to make it more suitable for truck duties. It makes 425 horsepower and 516 pounds-feet of torque, which is a massive torque increase over the outgoing V8. But you've also got other things that really do help the Armada tow quite well. That adjustable air suspension, that definitely helps. It's also sitting on a completely new frame as well that's 57% stiffer than the old one and has a 25% increase in torsional rigidity as well. So overall it's an excellent platform for towing, and as we're actually dragging this trailer along, it is fantastic. This thing isn't upset by anything. It is smooth. It's powerful. You also now have an integrated trailer brake controller which is nice. That comes standard on the PRO-4X and on the Platinum Reserve. And that really does help you tow with more confidence, especially if you've got such a high tow rating. 8,500 pounds, that's a lot to tow. You don't wanna do that without some kind of trailer brakes and control in the actual cabin. And to have it right here, nice enough, high whenever you need it in an emergency, that is a really nice detail. It's not down here on the console or somewhere you can't reach it. So for towing duties, the Armada really feels fantastic; far better than the old one did. In addition to the PRO-4X off-road model, we also get to spend some seat time in this one. This is the Platinum Reserve. This is the no-holds-barred, fully loaded, top-trim luxury model, and I have to say it's really nice in here. Now, this vehicle is platform-shared equipment with the INFINITI QX80, but there's a key difference between the QX80 and the Nissan Armada. You have the same kind of screens up here. You've got these large dual screens. This one's your gauge cluster. This one is your touch screen and multimedia system. But down here you still have actual buttons and controls for things in the Nissan; you don't have that in the QX80. It's all touchscreen glass panels in the INFINITI. I vastly prefer this. They've still maintained actual hard buttons, knobs, controls, toggles for the things you use frequently. So obviously the transmission selector, but also a lot of the climate controls are still hard buttons. The mode selector for the drive modes; the four low, four high, off-road four-wheel drive controls; all of that still buttons and controls and that is absolutely fantastic. Now, the other thing that's interesting about this is that this actually kind of feels to me like what the old Toyota Land Cruiser used to feel like and that was a large full-sized SUV with a super nice interior and a really high price tag. And when Toyota went to the new Land Cruiser, they downsized and they made it not quite as nice and not quite as expensive and not quite as luxurious. So I do wonder if maybe some people who really did enjoy the old-style type of Land Cruiser wouldn't feel perfectly at home in here in the new Armada Platinum Reserve; it's that level of niceness and luxury. You've got beautiful stitching in here. You've got really nice leather and materials. The visibility outward is fantastic. These mirrors are a little different than they were for the prior version. The last Armada had really vertically oriented mirrors and they were kind of narrow. These are much wider, much larger, and so the visibility out to the sides is a lot better than it used to be. Again, you've got the new 3.5-liter twin turbo V6 in here; 425 horsepower, 516 pounds-feet of torque. And now that we're not towing anything or driving it off road, we're having a chance to actually sample it on the pavement. It's got plenty of power. It's certainly punchy and responsive, but there is a bit of a vibration. It is a little bit coarser than you might expect from a vehicle at this price point. It's not, you know, disturbing. It's not unpleasant, but you do feel the vibration through the wheel and through the seat and through the center console. It's not quite as smooth as it could be. That also might be that this is a pre-production vehicle and there's still a little bit of tuning left to do. We'll see when the actual production vehicles come out just how different they are from this one. It shouldn't be that different, but there might still be a little bit of tuning left to do. The other interesting thing about the new Armada is that dimensionally, it's not all that different on the outside than the old one. It's a little bit longer, a little bit wider. It rides on the exact same wheel base. Inside, they've redone the packaging of the interior to the point where it's got a lot more room in every row really. The second row now slides fore and aft so that you could have a lot more room in the third row than you did before. That was one of the issues with the most recent Armada was that when it went from the Nissan Titan platform to the international Nissan Patrol platform, it lost a lot of that third-row room. You've still got a a tighter third row than you might find in some other large SUVs, but it's a lot more usable in terms of that third-row leg room than you had before. There's plenty of room up front, tons of headroom as well, even with this panoramic moon roof above me. Overall, it's just super comfortable, spacious, easily usable. The seats have also been redesigned to have a much better flat loading floor when you put all the seats down than it did before, and that's certainly an advantage over competitors like the Toyota Sequoia, which has that hybrid drive train that has all the batteries in the far back and a live axle. So you really have this tiered effect in the Sequoia; you don't have that in the Armada. It's much more usable for, well, Costco runs than, say, the Sequoia is. I think what really strikes me though is just the refinement that we have here. Despite the little bit of vibration from the powertrain, there's no wind noise in here really at all. Very little road noise. Even with these super large wheels and tires on this Platinum Reserve model, you're not getting a harsh ride in the slightest. That's partially due to the electronic active suspension and the air springs at all four corners on this model. But again, it feels like a luxury SUV; it's certainly priced like one, so it should feel this good. The premium audio system in here is a Klipsch audio system, which is a name that not a whole lot of people really remember, but it's an old name in terms of premium, high-fidelity audio systems. There are only 12 speakers in this car, but they are 12 very well-placed, very well-tuned speakers. I mean, you see what you'll get in some competitors. I mean, Cadillac Escalade has something like 30-something speakers now, which is quite extraordinary. But what Nissan's been able to achieve with just 12 in here is exceptional. The sound quality is fantastic. I won't turn it on for you now 'cause it really won't make a difference if you're watching this on your phone, but trust me, if you get a chance to sit in one and actually give it a try, it really does sound fantastic even with just a 12-speaker, 600-watt audio system. Nissan says that the SL trim grade is going to be their most popular trim grade most likely, but there's a bet out among some of the Nissan staffers that say that they think the new PRO-4X is going to turn out to be the most popular version of the new Armada, and I could see that happening given its mixture of really nice interior appointments, very smooth ride given its larger all-terrain, balloon-style off-road tires as opposed to the low-profile ones on these. I could see the PRO-4X being the really go-to version of the Armada. For pricing, however, there's a pretty wide range of what you can get in terms of a sticker price for your new '25 Armada. So how much does the new 2025 Nissan Armada cost? Well, there are five trim levels to choose from and the least expensive being the SV; will start at about $57,000 including a dealer destination fee. And it'll range all the way up to about $82,000 for one like this, a totally loaded Platinum Reserve. Now the new Armada is actually on sale at Nissan dealers across the country right now, so if you'd like to find one near you, you can look that up at cars.com/news. (upbeat music)