Is the 2005 Nissan Quest an acquired taste?

While our 2000 Odyssey is in the shop, we're living with a free rental car provided by the dealer. It's a 2005 Nissan Quest with only 3000 miles on it. Ordinarily, I'd be savoring my chance to drive such a new and powerful vehicle over our Odyssey that's been around the block quite a bit. But oh my, the number of issues I have with the car:

  1. Gas mileage is simply horrible. I'm guessing we're getting 15-18 mpg in a 50/50 mix of expressway driving and typical short trip suburban driving. You can almost watch the gas guage drop on it.

  1. Why are such key instruments as the speedometer in the MIDDLE of the dash, so the driver has to turn his head 45 degrees to see them? It's really odd at night, having a black area straight in front of me where I'd expect the backlit instrument panel to be.

  2. The horizontally-oriented climate control and audio panel is just weird. Plus, the area it sticks out of takes up a lot of key space.

  1. Because the "pod" (for want of a better word) with the audio and climate controls sticks out so far, it's a major risk to attempt to insert a CD into the player while driving. I can't even see the slot for the player because of the awkward way it's positioned.

  2. The rear hatch door opens so high, and closes so hard, that my wife has a great deal of difficulty closing it.

It's just a loaner, and we've only had it for five days. I'm wondering if my observations above are shared by others. And does the overall experience with the car improve over time? Although the car feels like it's well-built, it's the most nonintuitive car I've ever used, and seems like it wasn't designed with much foresight.

Reply to
2000OdysseyLX
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The front end is positively fugly...it looks like the designer carved it from playdough with a butter knife. Other than that it is another van.

Reply to
John S.

I know where your coming from with this. We just dumped our 97 Explorer for a minivan. Being a Nissan fan (we have a 95 200SX SE-R and an 03 Altima 3.5 SE), we gave the Quest a good look. However, the interior is very cheap feeling and the dash sucks! Although I love the Nissan VQ engine, we wound up with an 05 Odyssey with the iTEC engine (esp with the current gas prices). We've had the Odyssey a month now, and I'm not a minivan fan, but this thing rides great and is very comfortable! Still, I like my Altima better, but the Odyssey is a great vehicle for our family. My next Nissan will have to wait a couple more years (G35 / Z) until the Altima is paid off!

Reply to
Robert Sluder Jr.

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