Inside pics of the Qashqai, Dualis, and Rogue - Warning Large Photos!

[philipa_240sx]

From the Nissan News Uk website:

[kerrton]

Very good diagrams, thanks for posting them Philip!
Modified by kerrton at 3:15 PM 4/27/2009

[cdmuile]

Great info, Phil. Such engineering!! Ya gotta see it to believe it. Thanks for your searching and posting.

[kerrton]

Philip and others: regarding the "newly developed rear multi-link suspension", do you have any idea what specifically is new or unique about it and what was the rationale behind designing a new rear suspension rather than using something existing? It must have significant benefits to warrant the added cost of the unique design, rather than saving costs by simply using an Altima or Sentra desing, for example?

[philipa_240sx]

It must have significant benefits to warrant the added cost of the unique design, rather than saving costs by simply using an Altima or Sentra desing, for example?

The Sentra has a torsion beam a.k.a. solid axle rear suspension, it's not independent. Since the Rogue/Qashqai/Dualis shares the Sentra platform, Nissan had to design an independent rear suspension to replace the torsion beam design. This was necessary for 2 reasons:

1) The Sentra's torsion beam could not accomodate the rear differential and drivetrain components for the AWD system.

2) Independent rear suspension is the norm for this class of vehicle. Using a solid rear axle in place of the torsion beam (like a pickup truck) would be totally unacceptable.

As for using the Altima independent rear suspension, it would have needed to be redesigned to fit within the Rogue's smaller chassis. I am sure Nissan's goal was to produce an independent rear suspension that could bolt in place of the torsion beam with minimal modifications to the chassis. The Sentra guys would beg to have the independent rear suspension from the Rogue in thier cars...