Best Used Nissan Compact Truck - Frontier

In the 1980s mini-trucks were at the height of their popularity. These tiny yet practical vehicles combined a tight passenger compartment with a decent cargo bed in order to provide a portion of the same utility offered by larger full-size vehicles. One of the leaders in the mini-truck market was Nissan, then known as Datsun, whose 720 line of pickups combined with the Toyota Truck to define what buyers expected from these micro haulers.

The Datsun 720 was sold in North America until 1986 when it was replaced by the Nissan Hardbody Truck. Much larger than the 720, the Hardbody was similar in size to the popular Ford Ranger and offered comparable amounts of towing and hauling capability. Like the 720, the Hardbody was offered in a standard cab and extended version that wasn’t well suited for hauling extra passengers but which did provide extra storage space that was protected from the elements. Equipped with either a 4 or 6-cylinder engine, the Hardbody soldiered on well past its prime until the late 1990’s, when it was clearly out of place in an automotive landscape populated by much more advanced options.

The first seeds of Nissan’s current compact truck offering were planted in 1998 with the release of the first generation Nissan Frontier. The vehicle’s modern styling made a solid impression on buyers, but it was the introduction of a four-door cab crew cab which really opened up the eyes of compact truck shoppers in the year 2000. When ordered with a 210 horsepower V-6, the Nissan Frontier was able to leapfrog over some of the domestic competition which had failed to keep up with the march of progress.

Nissan was far from finished when it came to refining the Frontier, and the second iteration of the popular pickup is one of the best buys currently available on the used compact truck market. The company chose to forge ahead along with a select number of small pickup manufacturers who had decided to plus-size their vehicles in order to increase their appeal to buyers who were attracted to the capabilities of a full-size truck but put off by the poor fuel economy and harsher handling.

This article focuses on the strongest used compact truck from Nissan to date, the 2005 – 2007 Frontier, which combines excellent power, a stylish appearance and strong features to hold a place at the top of the small pickup market.

2005 – 2007 Nissan Frontier

The Nissan Frontier made the leap to the big time in 2005 with a bold new design that followed many of the other players in the compact truck market in terms of growing the overall platform to approach mid-size dimensions. Like the Toyota Tacoma and Dodge Dakota before it, the 2005 – 2007 Nissan Frontier is a compact truck that offers significantly more space and cargo capacity than the smaller model it is replacing.

The secret to the Frontier’s transformation lies in the sharing of its basic platform with the full-size Nissan Titan pickup truck. Nissan has had a great deal of success with configurable platforms which can be custom tailored to a new application with a minimum of cost. The Frontier is of course still smaller than the Titan, but it provides a cargo bed that is just under 5 feet wide and a bit more than 6 feet long. The increased wheelbase of the truck also makes for more interior room, with each edition of the Frontier benefiting from 4-door access and a more comfortable passenger compartment in which the rear seats are not just an afterthought.

Motivating this extra mass in most versions of the truck is a 265 horsepower V-6 engine. This 4.0-liter unit also churns out 284 lb-ft of torque, which combines with the sturdier frame to provide a towing capacity of 6,500 lbs. A 154 horsepower 4-cylinder engine is available only on the entry-level edition of the vehicle. The V-6 is shifted through a 5-speed automatic or 6-speed manual, while the 4-cylinder comes exclusively with a 5-speed in either stick or automatic form. Buyers of the base Frontier are also not afforded with the option of four-wheel drive.

The 2005 – 2007 Nissan Frontier’s great power and real-world dimensions make it the used compact truck of choice among those who require a pickup which can easily navigate an urban environment.