My Rogue after 3 years

[philipa_240sx]

Well it seems 3 years and 134,000km (80k mi.) of Canadian winters and road salt have taken their toll on my Rogue. I spent the day detailing and waxing my Rogue...

The front end has it's share of pock marks from stone chips. I also have a few dime sized surface rust spots just above the windshield. Admittedly, I haven't been looking after all the stone chips and detailing the vehicle as I should. This is primarily a work vehicle and it sees a lot of wear and abuse. I guess you could say it earns a living! I will likely schedule a visit to the body shop to touch up the rust.

The rest of the vehicle has been fine. Just the usual wear and tear items... tires, brakes, oil and filter changes, etc. The only other repairs so far have been a set of front swaybar end links and replacing a faulty purge solenoid for the fuel tank/emissions systems.

The Rogue will be traded in.... likely sometime in 2012. There will be some big decisions... the Rogue is set for a redesign in 2012 and a move from Japan to a US assembly plant. Not sure if I like the idea as all my Nissan vehicles assembled in Japan have been great. The Altima (Smyrna, Tenn. Plant) had it's share of issues although minor. I have also considered moving to a truck with more usable cargo space... a Nissan Frontier maybe. Fuel consumption is a factor though. Although I do get to claim mileage for work (a fixed rate per km), having a more fuel efficient vehicle allows me to pay for other things like the car financing and insurance. We'll see how it goes!

[Nick 568]

August will be the 3-year mark for me. I'll be replacing the windshield this summer after getting 2 large unrepairable cracks this past winter. I haven't had any issues with rust, despite living in a similar climate.

My story sounds a bit like yours...no major issues...few minor warranty items. I also don't detail it like I should... I make sure to wash it at least once a week, but man it needs the paint cleaning clay bad.
Mine's been a champ too though...towing a 1700 lb trailer every weekend for 5 months straight in the winter without a single problem.

I too may be trading the Rogue for a small pickup (I'm thinking Tacoma or maybe Frontier) in 2012 as well, or maybe a year later in 2013. Basically I'd be trading it as soon as the powertrain warranty expires at the latest. My Rogue doesn't have many miles on it, but they're all hard miles...all city miles or towing miles.
I'd like to get something that can tow my 2-place trailer w/o breaking a sweat, and that has the ability to tow a small toy-hauler trailer.

I'll be paying attention to what you end up doing when the time comes for sure.

[kerrton]

Come on you guys, hang on to the Rogue for a few more years, especially you Philip, in another 3 tyo 4 years you could easily hit 300,000 km!!

I too just passed 3 years with my Rogue FWD SL in April, and it's been a great car for me so far even considering some nagging warranty work and CVT issues, all of which were corrected. I've only got 45,000 km but the majority is city miles and I too punish the car through very long cold winters with lots of snow and salt. For me the real test of a vehicle's quality comes much later in the life of the vehicle after 10+ years and at least a couple hundred thousand kilomters, so I reserve final judgement on the Rogue until much later. At only 3 years of age even the cheapest of cars should still be running like new, I'm hoping to see the Nissan quality really show itself after many more years of service.

After 3 years my car does look very close to the way it did when brand new, only a few small paint chips on the front end, interior fabric looks new. The car handles like new, tracks nice and straight and still feels very solid and safe hitting bumps at high speed. It's actually better than new because I've gotten rid of some serious sources of road wind noise, and added some cosmetic items such as hood deflector, chrome door handles and side steps.

I'm predicting that the new Rogue will be very different than the current model, particularly I'm betting on a completely new powertrain and possibly more than one choice in order to keep up with the competitors who are releasing some amazing powertrains. Possibly a small turbo (1.8L GDI turbo was in development according to previous press release), and maybe a GDI version of the current 2.5 with more refinement, power and efficiency and almost certainly a next gen CVT. At some point a hybrid will also be offered almost certainly with the new Nissan developed system.....

[kerrton]

If you're considering a Nissan pickup to replace the Rogue, you might want to wait for this 4-cylinder diesel powertrain:

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2011/05/cu ... titan.html