Nissan Hands Out the Death Sentence

With decreasing sales over the past 10 years – 72,447 in 2005 and 16,505 last year – the Nissan Xterra will finally die. Will it be by lethal injection, electric chair, old fashioned beheading, etc? I kid…though it would be pretty cool to engineer that kind of death for a vehicle. Just a thought.

Anyway, Car and Driver found the Xterra doesn’t appear on Nissan’s 2016 lineup announcement.

But why are the killing it? It’s a gas chugger, heavy, clunky, and more importantly, out of touch with current consumer wants, needs, and desires. It also feels more unstable than other crossovers and SUVs. The Nissan Xterra is also a body-on-frame instead of unibody. Unibody gives a smoother ride and is safer in front impact and rollover tests, with slightly lower numbers in the side impact test.

I also just read the Xterra competes with the Jeep Wrangler, which I find strange. Sure, you can off-road with the Xterra, but not all that well. And good luck finding parts to hook it up like you can a Jeep! Either way, it looks like Nissan would have to spend a boatload of moolah just to upgrade safety and emissions equipment alone, and for a limited amount of sales. It just doesn’t make financial sense to keep producing a vehicle with such low sales numbers.

Nissan’s 2016 Lineup Press Release is an amusing read, with Nissan saying “And Xterra, one of the boldly designed vehicles that helped reinvigorate the Nissan brand at the beginning of the century, will go out of production after a highly successful 15-year run”. That link there is directly to Nissan’s 2016 Lineup Press Release, so go click it! They’re doing something stupid, crazy awesome with the Titan! But read it after you finish this hahaha!

Are you sad to see the Nissan Xterra die a slow death or are you happy and think it’s about time that block looking thing on wheels is done being produced? Tell us in the comments below!