NISMO Sentra!

[RicerX]

Hey GUYS. Nissan did a thing - the 2017 NISMO Sentra.

The good news is - it has a manual transmission!

The bad news is - no one will give a s***.



Nissan says this thing will cost close to $25k. So that means it will cost $24,998 or something. Let's lay out the cars you can get within 10% of that price that are also a "performance moniker" type vehicle:

• Honda Civic Si
• Ford Focus ST
• Subaru WRX
• Volkswagen GTI

So. The Sentra NISMO (which uses the same motor as the previously announced SR TURBO model) puts down 188hp and 177lb-ft of torque. While the motor is smaller and more advanced, those numbers should sound familiar to B15 Spec V drivers - they're virtually identical. Yes, Nissan is putting down the same number a car 10 years older did, with similar fuel economy out of a smaller motor and marketing it at the same trim tier. But that's not even the bad part.

For slightly more money, the Sentra puts down a whopping 3lb-ft more torque than the "gutless" VTEC out of the Civic. While I'm sure the Sentra's power under the curve is far superior, this isn't something to be ignored as the Honda will wax it on the top end. The Civic will also get its power to the ground better via a far more effective differential setup. The Sentra is open diff.

For the same money, you can get nearly 100hp and 100lb-ft of torque more out of a Focus ST. We'll just leave that right there.

For slightly more money, you can have all wheel drive and nearly 100hp and 80lb-ft of torque more out of a Subaru WRX.

What does the NISMO Sentra do better than any of these? Fuel economy over all except the GTI. Power over none of them. Price over two of them.

So a pricing premium over an SR TURBO gets you 80s style lay-z-boy easy chairs with NISMO stitching, a fancy set of bumpers, and a coilover system.

Can anyone tell me why I should have expected anything different?

[Bubba1]

I see it as a first step from a car company that has all but abandoned fun cars for several years. The fact Nissan is finally offering a clutch option is big. I just hope enough people are willing to try them out before condemning them for not having not enough power. If you recall, the 1989 240sx had just 140hp and a 118 mph speed limiter. the first gen Miata had, what, 116hp? Both fun little cars. It should be about the driving experience, not how much hp it has. So I say give the Sentra Nismo a chance and test drive one .

[RicerX]

I hear you Joel. The problem is see is yes it's the experience, but $25k buys a lot of experience in other alternatives. I don't see what the Sentra can offer from an experience outlook that's better than what you can get from a Focus ST. I even tried to let my Nissan-apologist shine through by excluding the entry Mustang and Camaro models when considering the $25k price point because the Sentra is a far more practical car being the four door sedan with a usable trunk. Even on that front it's not as practical as the Focus because a hatch always trumps a sedan there.

The 240SX was great fun for the dollar for its time. The dollar goes a lot farther these days.

[numbnuts240]

i'll just add one thing: lift off oversteer. my focus st wins every time.

[MinisterofDOOM]

The new Sentra is so freaking BLOATED-looking.

But wait... Manual trans?!?!? Is it Christmas already?! Wonder what this means for the test of the lineup...

[RicerX]

I'm sorry man - usually you're the more cynical one, but I'm frustrated with this.

The manual trans would be more noteworthy if it wasn't simply the engine and transmission pulled out of a Juke base model. This powertrain is nothing new at all - they just "modernized" the Sentra with something they've been selling for five years already. On top of that, they didn't even throw the Juke Nismo tune into it that gives it 215hp! They left it at 188!

I'm glad they're offering it and all, but this thing won't sell because it can't compete with other performance marques for the pricepoint. So they'll blame it on being "niche" and that "no one wants manuals anymore" and stick to Star Wars Edition Rogues with CVTs.

It's not that no one wants manual transmissions - it's that Nissan isn't building s*** with a manual trans that anyone wants to buy, save the 370Z, and well no one wants to buy those either because they're 10 years old now. This thing makes 90s power and shows up late to the party. It's not like this thing weighs 2500lbs or something... it's 3000 lbs!!! It still has a torsion beam rear end!

If they stuffed a manual into a Maxima and put red striping all over it with 370Z wheels, I'd at least go drive one. This is more of same Nissan bloatware being run by accountants. I cringed watching the VP Product Planner guy try to talk this up. There's nothing to talk about.

I can only hope the product planners with any guts at all are over at Infiniti scheming up their performance trims, because we're all washed up over here at Nismo.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

25 grand for that? Can't you get a BRZ/FRS/GT86 for that type of cash?

[RicerX]

Absolutely you can sir smurf.

[RicerX]

Hell you can get a base 370z brand new around $25k with how heavily they're discounting those right now.

[IBCoupe]

Three of those cars on your list are hatchbacks, too, right? So it's weak, it's heavy, it's not especially useful.

Who's their target demographic with this thing? Recent college grads who know just enough about cars to want a manual transmission, but not enough about cars to want a better one? Bravo for Nissan for at least trying on this, but this is the kind of effort you put in when you want to justify not doing something. Unlike Joel and MOD, I don't think Nissan's interested in really competing with those cars on your list, because I don't see this as a "first step" or an indication of broader change. I see this as more likely an attempt to settle an intracorporate dispute/power struggle, and generate some justification for abandoning the performance market more permanently. Any info on number of units they plan to build?

Contrast this with the story about Porsche switching to mid-engine designs for their professional endurance racing. That's a story about engineering lessons learned and applied where engineering lessons learned are most valuable and most impactful. That's the kind of thing that, to me, seems much more likely to have a broader impact on a company's lineup.

I'd love to be wrong, and I hope that I am, but it's hard to believe that no one at Nissan did the basic math that you've done.